LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, t 






l UNITED STATES OP AMERICA, f ■ 






OUR 



ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



A BRIEF STATEMENT OF 



SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS, 



EXHIBITING THE 

FOUNDATION OF THE BROAD CHURCH, ITS CHRIST, 

< 'WHICH LIGHTETH EVERY MAN THAT 

COMETH INTO THE WORLD." 



A COMPENDIUM OF RELIGION ; " THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS 



'lO* 



JACOB EDSON, 



BOSTON : j 
IRA BRADLEY & CO. 

No. 20 Washington Street. 

1873. 




3"^^ s 



t^ 



H \ 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 

JACOB EDSON, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



LC Control Number 




tmp96 027360 



ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



DEDICATION". 



The age demands a statement of religion that shall be 
brief, simple, comprehensive and explicit ; that shall include, 
comprehend, and demonstrate all the truths that have sought 
expression in the systems of the past in such a manner as to 
unfold, harmonize, and bless the race. Believing that such 
a system of religion exists in the divine mind, and is about 
to be made known, we feel it to be our privilege, as well as 
duty, to do what little we can to prepare the way for its un- 
foldment. With this object — this aim in view — these ar- 
ticles have been written ; to this end they are now dedicated. 

(v) 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Preamble • • 9 

ARTICLE I. 

Flowers — Their Culture and its Effect .... 10 

ARTICLE H. 

Love — What It Is — Its Universal Aim and Its True 
Spontaneity 11 

ARTICLE in. 

Religion as distinguished from Theology and Specula- 
tions — The Progress of the Soul — Its Pinal Unfold- 
ment into the Likeness of God 14 

ARTICLE IV. 

The Tree of Life — The Kingdom of Heaven — Its Di- 
viding Line — the Wigwam, and How to Pind It . 20 

ARTICLE V. 

Theology the Soul of Science — Its Functions — The 
Isms of Religion the Only Preventive — The Bible, 
and Other Religious Books — Moses in Egypt, and 
the Sepulchre of the Soul 26 

ARTICLE VI. 

The Subjective World — The Judgment-seat of Christ 

— The Receptivities of the Soul — The Border States 

— The Kingdom of Heaven, and the How we are to 
Enter It 34 



(vii) 



Vlll CONTENTS. 



ARTICLE VII. 



PAGE. 



The Path of Peace — How We are Brought into It — 
Regeneration Illustrated — The Reason why so Few 
are being Converted to Christianity — the Love of 
Genuine Goodness, and what the Lovers Should Do 38 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Love Opposed to Bondage — The Truly Good Man — A 
" Sweet Sinner" and a " Sour Saint," and the Rem- 
edy for their Troubles 44 

ARTICLE IX. 

Teachings of Jesus — Vicarious Atonement — The Mur- 
derer on the Gallows — Love of Jesus — The Infer- 
nal Abode, and the Glory of God in the Regeneration 
of Man 48 

ARTICLE X. 

The Christian Religion — Joseph's Coat — Christianity 
from an Intellectual Standpoint — Religious Perse- 
cution — Ingersoll in Search of the Gods, and the 
Work he is doing 53 

ARTICLE XI. 

Christianity Not a Failure — The Law of Life — The 
First and Second Coming of the Christ — Prayer Il- 
lustrated — The Condition of our Country — What is 
Recommended — What should Be Done, and How to 
Do It — Our Final Home 66 

ARTICLE XII. 

Our Belief Defined — Truth — Its Effect — Nature —- 
God's Mode of Operation — The Harmony of the 
Spheres — The Journey of Life Illustrated — Reputa- 
tion and Character — Darwinism — Freedom and its 
Effects . 104 



PEEAMBLE. 



^S^OLITUDE and silence, that can be felt as 



yffcSi described by Kane in the vicinity of the 
^ d pole, is the state, the condition to perceive, 
and appreciate truth. 

To be alone, is to be with God. Perfect rest is 
perfect action ; it is the Eden of life — the finality 
from which v^e come to which we hasten. 

From a subjective standpoint, the constitution 
of man is a divine enactment. The spiritual by- 
laws that bind and hold him to his Creator in- 
clude, permeate, and control all the states and 
conditions of life, so that the so-called incidents 
and accidents that continually beset and befall us 
are made to unfold and perfect the Christ, in the 
heart and consciences, the will and the understand- 
ing, which constitutes the wisdom of the race* 

(9) 



10 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



AETICLE I. 



FLOWERS THEIR CULTURE AND ITS EFFECT. 




|E believe in the divinity of Flowers, — that 
their study and culture tend to unfold 
^ the beauties of nature and the capacities 
of the soul. 

Not only flowers, but buds, as well as blossoms, 
bespeak the coming Spring, and tell of harvest. 
Winter, as well as Autumn, has its charms. Not 
only the seasons, but the months in the seasons, 
allegorically illustrate the truth of Holy Writ. 

w Stars and flowers are sisters " ; they reveal the 
beauty of God in nature, and reflect His glory 
above. 



LOVE. 11 



AETIOLE II. 



LOVE WHAT IT IS ITS UNIVERSAL AIM AND ITS TRUE 

SPONTANEITY. 



We find in every man's life a chord which, 
touched by a kindred sympathetic vibration, 
thrills and echoes through the inmost fibres of our 
own souls. Clinging to this, each and every hu- 
man being urges his way on in life ; find where it 
is attached, and you have a clew, following which, 
you can trace each step the man has trod, and 
divers mazes, unnatural wanderings, and explica- 
ble contradictions become the clear and necessary 
results of easily-defined law. It is the law of Love 
— mysterious influence — evidencing its divine 
origin, yea, more, its inherent divinity, in its uni- 
versal adaptation to all conditions of men. 

Love is to the soul what magnetism is to the 
compass — the motive-power which directs all its 



12 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

actions ; what blood is to the animal, or sap to 
vegetable life — the channel of communication ; 
yes, the very element itself of growth and vital- 
ity; ay, all, and above all, and more than all, it 
is to the human soul what God is to the universe 
— the life thereof. " God is Love," — the allegor- 
ical tree of life implanted in the hearts and con- 
sciences of men. 

"Love, sanctified by religion, can never die; " 
K it is too delicate a plant to thrive in the chilly 
atmosphere of neglect ; let it be warmed by the 
breath of a pure affection, and it will grow and 
thrive, giving forth beauty, fragrance, and fruit." 
"Not always can flowers, pearls, poetry, protes- 
tation, nor even home, content the unfolding soul 
that dwells in clay ; it arouses itself, at last, from 
these endearments, as toys, and puts on the har- 
ness, and aspires to vast and universal aims. " The 
great end and aim of life is to become united to 
God, that His service maybe our joy, His pres- 
ence our perpetual home." " The essential elements 
of a true home are not confined to the few, but 
opened to the many ; home is too rich a boon to 
be monopolized by any class, or limited to any 
external condition of men." "Trust not the spon- 



LOVE. 13 

taneity of love ; the fountains play freely only 
when the reservoir is full, and the reservoir soon 
fails when the little rills, rivulets, springs, and 
streams, gushing out of the mountain-side, are 
cut off. It is the thousand little mossy droppings, 
pearly rills, and hidden springs of living affection, 
gushing out of the sunny slopes, shady retreats, 
and rocky glens of e very-day life, that give to 
the fountain of love its true spontaneity." 



There is a stream, a peaceful stream, 
From Heaven within it flows ; 

It warms and urges on in life 
The soul through whom it glows. 

'Tis broad and deep, 'tis calm and clear, 
The stream from Heaven runs still ; 

Tis ever onward in its course, 
Its mission to fulfil. 



14 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



ARTICLE III. 



RELIGION AS DISTINGUISHED FROM THEOLOGY AND SPEC- 
ULATIONS THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL ITS FINAL 

UNFOLDMENT INTO THE LIKENESS OF GOD. 



Religion is the spiritual manifestation of the 
Divine principle of Love implanted in the human 
soul; it involves the knowledge of "good and 
evil," their unfoldment, the passional nature, its 
"naming swords," and the final partakement of 
"the Tree of Life." As distinct from Theology, 
it is godliness, or real piety in practice ; as dis- 
tinct from virtue or morality, it consists in the 
performance of the duties we owe directly to God 
— from a principle of obedience to His will, the 
term implies bondage — being bound anew not to 
any particular theory or creed, but to truth, by 
faith reposed in certain ideas ; its object is to un- 
fold motives for action, derived from an acknowl- 



RELIGION. 15 

edgment of Divine power, rather than to indicate 
any particular line of conduct itself. It is a bond 
of union which unfolds the principle of Love, and 
lifts the soul to God. 

This definition excludes from the domain of re- 
ligion proper all mere conceptions of the nature, 
attributes, and purposes of God ; all mere percep- 
tions of the capabilities, opportunities, and neces- 
sities of man, these proofs of intellectual capacity 
and advancement it gives over to their proper place, 
belonging, as they do, to speculation, which must 
ever be the handmaid of a living religion, and in 
this capacity must be useful ; but which, as a sub- 
stitute for religion, can be only baneful in its 
results. 

Correct speculation — I mean unprejudiced in- 
quiry in a receptive spirit — tends to increase the 
inquirer's knowledge of God, to unfold and blend 
his affections in closer bonds of love to Him, thus 
bringing God nearer the man while it raises him 
nearer his Creator. 

The unprogressed soul may be considered an 
eternal distance of unregenerated love and affec- 
tion ; from its divine cause, his ineffable presence, 
this distance constitutes the journey of life. In 



16 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

going godward, we distinguish between the devel- 
opment of the faculty of the soul, and the pro 
gression of the soul that possesses the faculty ; 
the one is the capacity to do, the other is the thing 
done. The reward is not for, but in the doing , 
" to be or not to be " blest is not so much a ques- 
tion of time, place, or capacity, as it is a question 
of J states and conditions. Prayer, in its best 
sense, is spiritual demand : its answer, divine 
supply. 

Experimental religion involves the conception 
and development of inspired conditions — the prac- 
tical entering into, and cooperation with, the power 
that is both demand and supply ; capacity to receive 
is the limit of power to bestow. " His arm is not 
shortened, that He cannot save." But our condi- 
tion may be such, that salvation for the time being 
is impossible. Repentance is not so much an act, 
as it is a state, a condition, that precedes and pro- 
duces action ; it is not inconsistent with the infinite 
perfection of the Omniscient to make this blessing 
dependent upon the action of the recipient. 

Let the sceptic question the necessities of his 
own soul to deny the efficacy of prayer in toto. 
To hold that the unchangeable God cannot be 



RELIGION. 17 

moved in accordance with His will, leads at once 
and directly to the doctrine of Fatalism, which, 
believed in, renders the soul apathetic, and incap- 
able of effort or advancement. To allow a reflex 
benefit to the soul from communing with God but 
advances a step higher, though it opens a way and 
motive for improvement, and gives abundant rea- 
son why men ought always to "pray, and not to 
faint," but to hold God a sympathizing Father, 
ever ready to hear the cry of His children — a 
wise and beneficent Creator, who has made the 
bestowment of His favors dependent upon our 
efforts — leads to a filial trust, to a warm, gushing 
love, and a life of devotion to His service. 

This idea, gloriously adapted to the wants of 
the human soul, is the only one by which may be 
produced the effect each man knows he needs ; 
nor is such idea unreasonable, nor is such a course 
a mark of fickleness of mind on the part of God. 
His laws are ever the same. His providences are 
ever-varying ; — the latter always adapted to the 
circumstances and conditions of the persons influ- 
enced. As well accuse Him of fickleness of 
mind, because, from the same soil, expanded by 
the same sun, watered by the same showers, two 



18 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

plants grow side by side as dissimilar as the rose 
and the violet. As well accuse Him of inconsis- 
tency, because the acorn, planted in the deep soil, 
expands into the splendid oak; while another, 
dropped in the crevice of some granite rock, be- 
comes a mere scrubbv shrub. 

True religion may be defined to be a life of re- 
ceptive trust in the providence of God. The soul 
may be considered a divine plant receiving its sub- 
stance from God ; and if we allow cares, trials, 
frivolity, and speculations to engross our whole 
time, and as rocks to prevent the tendrils of our 
hearts from taking hold on Him, or as choking 
weeds to hinder the leaves of desire from expand- 
ing in the sunlight of His countenance, we cannot 
expect a vigorous growth. If we cut off the ten- 
der fibrils which crowd the roots, we cannot 
look for beauteous blossoms. As well hide the 
material plant from the natural sun, and expect 
to gather the luscious fruit, as to deprive the soul 
of spiritual communion and religious associations, 
and hope a glorious development. 

The religions that have preceded us have served 
the purposes of divine economy, as means to ends, 
in the order they obtained. 



EEUGION. 19 

As the monkey and the ape, as well as the lion 
and the lamb, preceded man in the order of cre- 
ation, so the more cruel and barbarous religions 
preceded and made possible the more human and 
divine religions of to-day, which in their turn 
must give way to the ever-unfolding Word . 

Cut man loose from the object of his affection, 
or the religion that bound him, without giving 
him a new point to which to attach himself, and 
he straightway falls into a pit of despair ; induce 
him day by day to fix his affections on more and 
still more worthy objects, and step by step he ap- 
proaches nearer and nearer, and reflects more and 
more clearly, the image of the Perfect God, 



There's a fount beyond the river ; 

Tis the source of all our joy : 
From it flows, in love forever, 

Perfect good without alloy. 



20 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



AETICLE IT. 



THE TREE OF LIFE THE KINGDOM OF HEATEN ITS 

DITIDING LINE THE WIGWAM, AND HOW TO FIND IT. 



The tree of life — the kingdom of heaTen — is 
within you ; the grain of mustard-seed — the pearl 
of great price — is there ; the Bible is a pictorial 
exhibition of its unfoldment; if we read it as 
poetry, it is beautifully expressive of truth 
adapted to almost eTery conceiTable condition in 
life ; but if we read it as prose, we materially in- 
jure or entirely destroy its teachings. The back- 
ground of the picture is dark animal passions, 
contention, and strife, enkindled by self-loTe, 
breaking forth and bursting out like volcanoes. 
The idea of a wrathful and TindictiTe God eTery- 
where abounds. The Decalogue is inscribed upon 
the tablets of the human soul amid the thunder 
of Mount Sinai ; the meekest of men is mad with 



THE TREE OF^LIFE. 21 

anger in his effort to transmit the record; the 
tables of stone, as well as the golden calf, are 
broken to pieces. The Jewish fathers tremble 
with fear ; they accept and serve, as best they can, 
their highest ideal of the one only and true God. 
It is a slavish service, unworthy of a different age. 
Through the sacrificial blood of bulls and goats 
they appeased, so far as their conscience is con- 
cerned, the wrath of an offended God. He hears 
their cry, inspires their thought. Poetic teaching 
and prophetic prose unfold the nation ; a new era 
dawns upon the race ; the star of Bethlehem re- 
flects its light — the Christ — the quickened spirit 
obtains, as an entity in man ; the sentiment of for- 
giveness, because of Ignorance, becomes a reality 
in human experience. The fact that love, and not 
blood, is the substance that saves, begins to be un- 
derstood ; it is the dividing line between daylight 
and darkness, night and day, good and evil. On 
the one hand is war, contention, and strife : the 
ring-streaked and speckled fighting religionists, 
literal believers in absolute evil, total depravity, 
and eternal torment; on the other hand is love, 
joy, and peace, the priesthood of Melchisedec, 
believers in the goodness of God and the sonship 



22 AKTICLES OF FAITH. 

of the race ; it is the gospel of peace — a love- 
letter to all mankind ; as much so to the merest 
blotch of humanity that now mars the otherwise 
fair face of God in nature (if he could only see 
it), as to the genial, loving soul that sings in har- 
mony with angels the psalms of life. 

We do not believe that any human soul can be 
irrecoverably lost ; it may be we all have been at 
fault, and bewildered. We have found ourselves 
on the wrong road, going the wrong way, a great 
ways off from our father's house, years ago, alle- 
gorically speaking; we used to carry a guide- 
board with us, but found out, after a long and 
painful experience, that a guide-board was of lit- 
tle use except for the state and condition for which 
it was painted. 

" It is the wigwam, and not the Indian, that is 
lost." 

The germ of divine life is within you, like Laz- 
arus in the tomb, or the oak in the acorn, waiting 
conditions. 

We are told that by properly conditioning a 
bar of common iron, and striking it a few sharp, 
quick blows, we can awaken within it a latent 
power, a magnetic force, that will indicate its re- 



THE TREE OF LIFE. 23 

lation to -the poles, and serve the purpose of a 
compass ; not that it will be as correct or efficient 
as can be made from properly-prepared and pol- 
ished steel, but sufficiently so to enable the lost 
mariner or woodsman to find his way home. As 
with the bar of iron, so with the human soul. 
There are none so low down in the scale of being 
but what, if spoken to under proper conditions, 
if touched in the right spot, will respond to the 
call and come forth ; or, like the acorn properly 
conditioned, will spring into life, and, growing 
under the sunshine of an infinite cause, will ripen 
into perfect fruit. 

It is said that by placing bars of common 
iron, properly conditioned, each to the other, and 
all to the poles, that they in time will become re- 
ceptive to, and surcharged with the electric force 
of the planet, so as to exhibit the power that con- 
trols the universe. As with bars of iron, so with 
human souls, properly conditioned, each to the 
other, and all to God, we may in time become not 
only receptive to, and surcharged with, but the 
channel itself of communion and fellowship un- 
folding and fructifying the allegorical vine and 
vintage of the Lord. 



24 AKTICLES OF FAITH. 

Qualities of love and affection differ and distin- 
guish each of us from all others ; it constitutes 
our individuality, which can never be lost. As 
the lily, the violet, and the rose differ in color, 
form, and fragrance, so we, plants of the immor- 
tal garden, must ever possess, and continue to 
unfold and perfect, the peculiarities implanted 
within. If we keep company with the violet and 
the rose in our communion with God, we partake 
of their nature ; which, added to our own, consti- 
tutes a trinity of life — of unfolding progression 
in capacity to perceive, appreciate, and enjoy 
what could not have been without such differ- 
ences and partakement. 

Truth is the natural food of the soul ; it sus- 
tains and unfolds our metaphysical bodies. 
Thought is to the thinker what walking is to the 
walker — it moves him from where he stood. 
Though we may not, by taking thought, add to 
our stature, we may, by taking thought, discover 
how small we are, and be induced to let go the 
creeds and dogmas that belittle and stultify us. 
In short, it is by thought, experience, observation 
and practice that we are enabled to perceive, ap- 
preciate, and become receptive to teachings, states 



THE TREE OF LIFE. 25 

and conditions very much superior to ns. In this 
consists the science of godliness, — it is in accord- 
ance with nature, — it is God's mode of operation, 
allegorically speaking. The very worms beneath 
our feet are crawling up towards higher forms of 
existence, going godward, being crushed into 
more and still more perfect expression of life. 



There is a hope, a cheering hope, 
The anchor of the soul : 

It holds our hearts in love to God 
As magnets to the pole. 



There is a love, a light, a life* 
None but the true can know : 

Tis Charity, that perfect good, 
Which God alone can show. 



26 ARTICLES OP FAITH. 



AETIOLE V. 



THEOLOGY THE SOUL OF SCIENCE ITS FUNCTIONS 

THE ISMS OF RELIGION THE ONLY PREVENTIVE THE 

BIBLE, AND OTHER RELIGIOUS BOOKS MOSES IN EGYPT, 

AND THE SEPULCHRE OF THE SOUL. 



Theology is the soul of science ; it is unfolded 
upon, as well as implanted within, the rock of 
ages. It includes, amplifies, and compliments 
all the arts and sciences. Its function is to trans- 
plant, or rather unfold and transform, the flowers 
— the blossoms of earth — into the fruitage of 
heaven ; to transmute the baser metals of our na- 
ture into gold — the godliness of eternal good. 
In other words, to analyze, reveal, and demon- 
strate the presence and transforming power of 
God in the hearts and consciences of men ; it is 
the science of godliness in theory and practice. 

Doctors of divinity have been supposed to know 
all the spiritual maladies and malformations the 



THEOLOGY. 27 

human soul is liable to ; but we find, by observa- 
tion and experience, that they, in common with 
others, treat symptoms rather than the disease it- 
self — that they do not always understand the 
cause and cure. In short, that they, in common 
with ourselves, are troubled with the same com- 
plaint — ignorance — in some of its different forms 
of manifestation ; not alone the ignorance of the 
head, the intellect, the understanding, which our 
theological schools and colleges are calculated to 
eradicate, but also the ignorance of the heart, 
its affections, the will, its "upper standing," which 
enables one to walk with God. 

Different pathists have obtained and practised 
upon our credulity, but none, not even the homoe- 
opathists, have successfully treated all the com- 
plaints that have been and can be made. The 
eclectic and optimistic have been the most suc- 
cessful; they seem to be more radical, to enter 
more thoroughly into the merits of the case ; they 
usually prescribe Time and Common Sense, to 
which we would add the quickening of the spirit 
and the inspiration of the Almighty. Most of the 
regular faculty prescribe Eeligion, which we ac- 
cept; possibly we should not recommend their 



28 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

peculiar stripe, or any especial ring-streak or 
speckle. Most of the regular professors speak 
of religion as though it was something to be got 
or had, like a contagious disease, and not as some- 
thing inherent in man, as taught by the Christ. 

We grant that the isms of religion are con- 
tagious ; that we are all liable to them, in certain 
stages of development, but they are not danger- 
ous in these times. Occasionally one becomes 
creed-ridden — loses his capacity to think, and 
settles down into sectarian bigotry. None die — 
they simply cease to live for the time being, their 
worship becoming a mere mill-work, like the Con- 
necticut nutmeg; externally, looking very much 
like the real, but internally, heartless, — very un- 
like the kind that grow. 

We know of but one preventive, — a thorough 
infusion of truth in every conceivable line of 
theological thought and metaphysical speculation ; 
a thorough partakement of the tree of life, the dif- 
ferent parts of the metaphysical body of God ; a 
deep and continued draught at the fountain of 
life ; an entire and complete immersion in the 
boundless ocean of eternal love ; a baptism of 
which Baptists need not be ashamed. 



THEOLOGY. 21) 

The isms and creeds of religion are "but skins 
of truth stuffed and set up," — they serve the pur- 
pose of steps and gates at the entrance of spiritual 
life ; but it is not until we have passed the phase 
of denominational distinction, that we discover how 
large a place it is. Getting religion is a process 
of unfoldment, and not an event to occur and be 
recorded like the birth, marriage, or death of an 
individual ; there are discrete conditions of goods 
and truths, successive conceptions of, and births 
into, views — ways and means which make up and 
constitute the journey of life. 

We should as soon think of saying we had got 
mathematics, music, poetry, or the art of money- 
making, as to say we had got religion, or were a 
professor. What propriety would there be in 
calling the young student, who had but just 
learned that there was such studies as the arts 
and sciences, a professor of them, much less in 
calling an individual a professor of religion — 
the soul of all science — when he had but just dis- 
covered the existence of his religious nature, its 
origin, relation, and destiny? It is more than an 
impropriety to presume upon our profession of 
religion in a dogmatic and dictatorial manner, 



30 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

that we, because of certain experiences and vica- 
rious interconjunctions, are saints, in contradis- 
tinction to this or that so-called sinner who is 
earnestly investigating the law of life, and, in his 
straightforward up-and-down honesty, is truthful 
enough to say that he can't see it (religion) in the 
light we do ; it is an insult to common sense, of 
which dogmatic theology has reason to be ashamed. 

We would not ignore the value of experience, 
or the law of sympathy which binds each to the 
other, and all to God. It is possible so to sym- 
pathize with the bound, as to get the advantage of 
their bondage ; without its slavish chain, there is an 
interconj unction of soul through which one lifts 
himself by lifting others ; no one can be perfectly 
at home in heaven until his entire generation is 
lifted out of hell. Such is the solidarity of the 
race, that if one man is lifted up in the best sense 
of that term, he must lift all men up with him. 

Religious experience, observation, and practice 
may not make an individual interiorly any better ; 
it unfolds his better self — the divine principle 
implanted within — and puts him into a position 
to aid others. 

Theological teachings, as depicted in the sacred 



THEOLOGY. 31 

books of the world, are threefold in their nature 
and modes of interpretation : like the chestnut, 
they have an external husk, an interior shell, and 
the meat, or life-giving substance, within. The 
outer protects the inner, and enables the inmost 
to unfold and demonstrate itself; the thing de- 
monstrated we call revealed religion — the soul 
of science. The particular fold we are enabled 
to perceive and appreciate, depends upon the 
progress we have made, the standpoint we oc- 
cupy, in the journey of life. This idea may 
be illustrated by the picture of Moses in the 
rushes ; it is a trinity of views in one picture, not 
unlike the allegorical statement of Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost. The scoffing sceptic, not yet 
having (so far as his conscience is concerned) 
commenced the journey of his religious life, sees 
nothing in the picture but a dreary marsh, a mere 
waste of coarse vegetation. From this standpoint 
the exact sciences grind the statements of the 
Bible and other religious books to powder, and 
scatter their teachings as chaff before the wind. 
He perceives only the husks of truth ; it is the 
negative state of existence, or, if positive, is on the 
dark side of nature. Enlighten his understand- 



32 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

ing, open his spiritual perception, and he will 
discover a lion upon the marsh, — it is the lion of 
the tribe of Judea. If he be true to his per- 
ceptions in this plane of thought, he will be 
fixed as a flint, and will strike fire upon every 
piece of theological steel that comes in his path. 
It is the blood of bulls and goats that atones for 
sin, and saves the sinner, in that department of 
nature ; it is the shell of truth — it is the father 
in the allegorical trinity — he has discovered, and 
is contending for. Enlighten him still further, and 
he will perceive the lamb. It is so conditioned 
that the lion is not in view ; it is mysterious to be- 
hold. The picture has not been changed, but the 
man is transformed, or rather is in the process of 
transformation. He knows the lion is there lying 
in the way ; blood is still the element of communion, 
— not the blood of bulls and goats, but the blood 
of the Son of God — the second figure in the god- 
head. Lead him on still further in the journey of 
life, and from another, a more interior and dis- 
tinct standpoint, he will discover the allegor- 
ical child, — the third person in the godhead, the 
veritable Moses in Egypt ; — the Christ of God — 
the Holy Ghost — the gate of heaven — yea, heaven 



THEOLOGY. 33 

itself; in short, that quality of love and affection, 
without which repentance is of little avail. 

The different phases of unfoldment were but the 
rolling away of the stone from the sepulchre of his 
own soul, in which the truth was buried, so that 
the Christ, the quickened spirit, could come forth 
and demonstrate its existence as the soul of science 
in the hearts and consciences of the race. 



" Hath not thy heart within thee burned 
At evening's calm and holy hour, 
As if its inmost depths discerned 
The presence of a loftier power? 

. Hast thou not heard 'mid forest glades, 
While ancient rivers murmured by, 
A voice from forth the eternal shades, 
That spake a present Deity? 

And as, upon the sacred page, 
Thine eye in rapt attention turned 

O'er records of a holier age, 
Hath not thy heart within thee burned? 

It was the voice of God that spake 
In silence to thy silent heart ; 

And bade each worthier thought awake, 
And every dream of earth depart." 



34 ARTICLES OP FAITH. 



ARTICLE VI. 



THE SUBJECTIVE WORLD THE JUDGMENT-SEAT OF 

CHRIST THE RECEPTIVITIES OF THE SOUL THE 

BORDER STATES THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, AND 

THE HOW WE ARE TO ENTER IT. 



There is a subjective as well as an objective 
world ; man is a microcosm of all that preceded 
aim — an epitome of all that is to come after. 
It is not necessary to go outside of ourselves to 
find a wrathful God, a burning hell, where "the 
worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched." In 
our unprogressed sphere the ignorance of the 
heart, the affections, will create the place, and 
furnish the fuel to burn. Progression, as defined, 
walking with God, as described, will move us out 
of its existence. In the sphere above us there 
is no occasion or cause to produce it ; on the sunny 
side of nature all things are fair and bright. Un- 



THE SUBJECTIVE WORLD. 35 

tried innocence does not develop the highest form 
of virtue, or bring the repentant sinner to the 
judgment-seat of Christ. It is a beautiful theme 
for contemplation, this judgment-seat of Christ; 
that state of intuitive perception, that quality of 
love and affection, that sees into and sympathizes 
with the bound as bound with them, that knows 
not only the how and the wherefore, but the extent 
to which we were damned, so far as damnation is 
possible, in the mothers that bore us — the con- 
ditions that preceded us — before we were born. 
How different the sentiment of the Christ from 
that of Moses. The last words of David, the 
representative figure in the law of fear and force, 
were, " Solomon, my son, thou art a wise man" ; 
referring to Joab, who had done him a personal in- 
jury, he said, " Bring down his gray hairs in sor- 
row to the grave " ; the last words of Jesus, the 
representative figure in the law of love, speaking 
to the Christ, that He felt had forsaken Him, 
were, "Lord, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." 

Theology, as the soul of science, is a gladsome, 
joyous study ; it has to do with our affectional na- 
ture — the receptivities of the soul ; it unfolds the 



36 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

subjective world, and demonstrates the personal 
existence and power of God in the transformation 
of the race. 

There are border states through which the soul 
must pass in the journey of life ; it is a disputed 
territory, where guerilla warfares are carried on. 
It is the manifestation of the leaven in the meas- 
ures of meal. It is so to be, resistance does not 
avail us anything ; it rather exhausts than develops 
the capacities of the soul. In that state we may 
join all the peace societies in existence, and discuss 
most learnedly the question of non-resistance ; we 
may go further, and, so far as our external selves 
are concerned, be the meekest of men; but the 
spirit of anger is within, and controls us. The 
tables must be broken — the barriers of eternal 
truth must obtain — the foundations of a higher 
life must be laid down deep below the muds of an- 
imalism — the abutments of the bridge that spans 
the gulf between the animal and the divine man, 
and connects the material with the spiritual uni- 
verse, must be reared — we must subjugate within 
ourselves the entire animal kingdom ; all the 
w ring-streaked and speckled," "the lion and the 
lamb," must lie down together, so that the little 



THE SUBJECTIVE WORLD. 37 

i 

child — the third person in the trinity — can lead 
them, in us, up into the kingdom of heaven, where 
all is love, joy, and peace. 



" TnERE is a land mine eye hath seen, 
In visions of enraptured thought, 
So bright that all which spreads between 
Is with its radiant glory fraught ; — 

A land upon whose blissful shore 
There rests no shadow, falls no stain ; 

There those who meet shall part no more, 
And those long parted meet again. 

There sweeps no desolating wind 
Across that calm, serene abode ; 

The wanderer there a home may find 
Within the Paradise of God." 



38 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



AETICLE VII. 



THE PATH OF PEACE HOW WE ARE BROUGHT INTO IT 

— REGENERATION ILLUSTRATED THE REASON WHY 

SO FEW ARE BEING CONVERTED TO CHRISTIANITY 

THE LOVE OF GENUINE GOODNESS, AND WHAT THE 
LOVERS SHOULD DO. 



w There is a path which no fowl knoweth, which 
the vulture's eye hath not seen." "It cannot be 
gotten for gold, neither shall silver be weighed 
for the prize thereof"; "the lion's whelps have 
not trodden it"; "God understandeth the way 
thereof," " and the thing that is hid bringeth he 
forth to light." 

Activity is a necessity. Discovery is the re- 
sult. The young man starts out in life in the 
service of Mammon, seeking gold. Chains of 
circumstances, over which he has little or no con- 
trol, switch him off the track ; he finds himself 
a very different creature from what he was. The 



THE TATH OF PEACE. 39 

leopard's spots, the Ethiopian's skin, have been 
changed, through the workings of the law of re- 
generation, within him. He is now running an 
up-grade in the service of God, seeking a higher 
life. "We are moved wiser than we know." 

We are told by agricultural chemists that great 
droughts are necessary at times ; that they enable 
an electric substance, an essential element, to 
come up from the subsoil below, to vivify, un- 
fold, and perfect the vegetable kingdom. As 
with the soil of earth, so with the soul of man : 
the divine principle of love seeks for a more and 
still more perfect form of expression. 

We are told that by cutting off the seed part of 
the coarser grains, and not allowing them to ma- 
ture, w^e may produce a different order — a higher 
grade. It has been demonstrated always with the 
same results (oats under this treatment will pro- 
duce rye), showing the existence of the law of 
regeneration. We are told that tadpoles will grow 
to an enormous size in the dark, but will not be 
transformed into frogs, except they are brought 
into the light. As with tadpoles, so with the an- 
imal man — it requires the light of divine life to 
produce its likeness. 



40 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

Eegeneration is a thing of degrees in the scale of 
development. Creeds are shells of truth — the nec- 
essary incrustations in the process of unfoldment. 

It is said that a lobster changes his shell twenty- 
one times before he is matured ; that he goes into 
retirement, becomes poor and pliant, before he 
can extricate himself. As with lobsters, so with 
men; it illustrates the state, the condition, we 
call repentance. Some of us were born so small 
that we must pass through similar experiences. 

Crustaceans do not, in a good sense of the term, 
even respect each other ; the larger of the same 
species often devour the smaller; "they love 
the brethren." Mr. Bynser Jones relates that 
he had, on one occasion, introduced six crabs 
of different size into an aquarium ; one of them, 
venturing towards the middle of the reservoir, 
was immediately accosted by another a little 
larger, which took it with its claws as it might 
have taken a biscuit, and set about breaking 
its shell, and so found a way to its flesh. It 
dug its crooked claws into it with voluptuous en- 
joyment, appearing to pay no attention to the 
anger and jealousy of another of its companions, 
which was still stronger, and as cruel, and ad- 



THE PATH OF PEACE. 41 

vanced towards them. But, as Horace says — 
and he was not the first to say it — ec No one is 
altogether happy in this lower world." Our fero- 
cious crustacean quietly continued its repast, 
when its companion seized it exactly as it had 
seized its prey, broke and tore it in the same 
fashion, penetrating to its middle, and tearing out 
its entrails in the same savage manner. In the 
meantime the victim, singularly enough, did not 
disturb itself for an instant, but continued to eat 
the first crab bit by bit, until it was itself entirely 
torn to pieces by its own executioner — a remark- 
able instance at once of insensibility to pain and 
of cruel infliction under the lep talionis. To eat 
and to be eaten seems to be one of the great laws 
of animal nature. 

It is a beautiful illustration of the workings of 
the law of love, in commerce as well as in what is 
called Christianity, upon the animal plane. In 
the first stage it is the law of fear and force — the 
blood of bulls and goats ; in the second stage it 
is the law of love in the heart — the affections, the 
blood of Jesus ; in the third stage — the new dis- 
pensation — it is the love of genuine goodness shed 



42 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

abroad in the heart, the love and the affections, 
as well as in the head — the intellect, the upper 
standing, which enables the soul, through the re- 
generated capacities of its divine nature, to walk 
with God in the paths of peace. 

The reason why so few of the intelligent, the 
refined, cultivated, and scholarly of to-day are 
not Christians, or being converted to Christian- 
ity, is not so much because of the inconsistencies 
of professors, the incapacity, worldly-mindedness, 
love of show, and genteel appointments of the 
clergy, as it is the simplicity of the theories upon 
which they pride themselves. It is a simplicity 
which, from an intelligent or creative standpoint, 
is foolish, idle, incompetent, unavailing, and to 
the same time extremely dogmatic. The intelli- 
gence of the community has outgrown all such 
folly as is taught in the pulpit cant of to-day. 

The theories, schemes, and dogmas that served 
the purposes of infantile humanity will not satisfy 
the intellectual conditions which the use of steam 
and electricity have unfolded in the thinking peo- 
ple of to-day. 

All men, in their inmost nature, love the good, 



THE PATH OF PEACE. 43 

the true, and the right. "Break your pitchers, 
show your light," and the minions of darkness will 
flee before you as mist before the rising sun. 



OLD AND NEW. 



On sometimes gleams upon our sight, 
Through present wrong, the eternal Right ; 
And step by step, since time began, 
We see the steady gain of man. 

That all of good the past hath had 
Eemains to make our own time glad, 
Our common, daily life divine, 
And every land a Palestine. 

Through the harsh noises of our day, 
A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, 
A light is breaking calm and clear. 

Henceforth my heart shall sigh no more 
For olden time and holier store : 
God's love and blessing, then and there, 
Are now and here and everywhere. 

—J. Gt. Whittieb. 



44 ARTICLES OP FAITH. 



ARTICLE VIII. 

LOVE OPPOSED TO BONDAGE THE TRULY GOOD MAN 

A " SWEET SINNER" AND A " SOUR SAINT," AND THE 
REMEDY FOR THEIR TROUBLES. 



We cannot love a mere abstraction, an impal- 
pable something ; we must have an incarnation, to 
be efficient — the form must be our own, — our 
highest ideal of goodness and truth, — the Spirit 
the unfolding word. 

Religion is its manifestation ; in this sense it 
is opposed to bondage, as indicated in spheres 
below, where warfare is carried on. The leaven 
has done its work, the kingdom which was within, 
is without ; it is unfolded all around and about us. 
To the truly good man, there is no contention or 
strife, no disagreeble self-denial; he puts himself 
in the other's place, and has no selfish self to contend 
with or deny. He knows the truth by being true ; 
he reflects God by being godlike. He is a divine 



LOVE OPPOSED TO BONDAGE. 45 

magnet, — he is attracted to, and attracts; he is 
like a chronometer, — unaffected by the external 
conditions in which he is placed. He knows it is 
the sun in the heavens that keeps the time ; he 
is its record. He knows the fruit of the Spirit 
to be love, joy, and peace. He believes in a 
perfect Providence, a divine Husbandman ; and 
drinks, at the fountain of gardens, the well of living 
water, and streams of Lebanon. Is physical or 
moral war, pestilence, and famine abroad in the 
land, threatening the destruction of Church and 
State ? He hears the still small voice of the Father 
saying, "It is I; be not afraid." Does poverty 
stare him in the face ? "He doeth all things well ; " 
no doubt can enter there. Is sickness his portion ? 
With countenance beaming with gladness, he ex- 
claims, "Thou makest all my bed in sickness." 
Are friends taken from him ? Looking to the " city 
which hath foundations, whose Maker and Builder 
is God," he sings with renewed interest, "I'm 
going home ; " and rejoices in the hope of an eter- 
nity which knows no parting, where sin and sor- 
row trouble not, " for God shall wipe away all tears 
from their eyes," "and there shall be no more 
death, neither sorrow nor crying ; neither shall 



46 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

there be any more pain ; for the former things are 
passed away." 

The good man, who walks with God, cannot 
have any enemies ; there is no condition for en- 
mity, or cause for enmity in him ; it is only when 
he descends into the border states, the guerilla 
department of his nature, that he is persecuted, 
despised, and condemned ; the allegorical fig-tree 
was not condemned for not bearing fruit out of its 
season, but for being out of season. No man is 
persecuted in these times because of his good- 
ness ; it is the difference between his profession 
and his practice, the inconsistencies of his life ; it 
is the ignorant, superstitious, hypocritical, and dog- 
matic manner in which he persists in his course, 
and contends with men of straw, that produces per- 
secution. In reality, the persecution is entirely 
within and of himself; all of us in that plane of 
life must fight it out, or go up higher. 

A " sweet sinner " is more to be preferred as a 
friend and companion than a " sour saint " — he 
may be moved in the right direction ; but as for a 
sour, vindictive saint, he had better go into retire- 
ment, as illustrated by the crustaceans, than to 
stand where he is, and not go anywhere. He has 



LOVE OPPOSED TO BONDAGE. 47 

buried his talent in the earth, not necessarily by 
digging a hole in the ground, — possibly by writ- 
ing creeds and canonicals, and preaching; making 
converts to schemes of salvation as idle as the 
whistling wind, possibly by speculating in stocks, 
trying to corner the necessities of life, which 
shrink and shrivel the spiritual capacities of the 
soul, in contradistinction to speculations in good- 
ness and truth ; which free the gold of godliness 
from the dust of earth, and lift the soul to God. 
We would not caricature or condemn the literal 
church. We would use the truth as a "skilful 
gardener would use a sharp knife to cut the bark 
of a hide-bound tree, and give its trunk a chance 
to grow." 

Many an honest, self-sacrificing, devoted soul 
is on the dark side of Nature — in darkness, and, 
like owls, sees best in the night. Their light 
is darkness, and their day night ; and though it 
may cause weeping, wailing, and gnashing of 
teeth, the angel of mercy must take from them 
what religion they have, in order that they may 
extricate themselves, or be extricated, from their 
present condition, in accordance with the law of 
love implanted within them. 



48 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



AETIOLE IX. 



TEACHINGS OF JESUS VICARIOUS ATONEMENT THE 

MURDERER ON THE GALLOWS LOVE OF JESUS THE 

INFERNAL ABODE, AND THE GLORY OF GOD IN THE 
REGENERATION OF MAN. 

/ - 



We speak in accordance with the teachings of 
Jesus ; if we are guilty in one point, we are guilty 
in all ; in other words, if we arc in the sphere of 
selfishness, the Mosaic dispensation, or the 
Adamic, which is below it, we are accountable 
for all the misdemeanors, maltransactions, and 
crimes in those spheres, or the one to which we 
belong, and must take our proportion of penalty, 
which is medicinal in its action, upon and through 
the sphere in which it has occasion to act. 

The blood of the Son of God, much less the 
blood of bulls and goats, can avail us nothing, 
except and in so far as it serves the purpose of 
opening up the "way, the truth, and the life," 



TEACHINGS OF JESUS. 49 

which is love (and not blood), which lifts the 
soul to God, and unfolds His divine presence. 

The doctrine of vicarious atonement, as taught, 
is a maltreatment of the truth, which we will not 
stop here to illustrate or discuss. That we suffer 
each for the other, and all for the srood of the 
race, is a fact not to be denied ; but the divine 
chancery, the man-conceived bankrupt act, which 
makes paupers of us all, without inciting condi- 
tions or unfolding motives worthy of a letter 



sho 



end, is contemptible in the extreme, and should 
be buried with the dead. What we need, and 
what the doctrine of atonement, properly incul- 
cated, is designed to unfold, is a love for genuine 
goodness, which the wayfaring man, though a 
fool, so far as external education is concerned, 
may understand, and without which repentance is 
of little avail. 

The murderer on the gallows is but the full- 
grown fruit, the natural product of selfishness 
upon the animal plane ; circumstances over which 
we have but little control may not have placed us 
there, but there is a sense in which all of us 
that are on the animal plane in the disputed terri- 
tory, conducting guerilla warfares in the spirit, if 
4 



50 ARTICLES OF FAITH, 

not in the letter, stand in murderers' shoes. This 
same love, so terrible in its effect in this stage 
of nature, if properly treated, would unfold the 
truth, — it would enlighten and transform the 
children of men into sons of God. 

It is said that in the old schools the masters 
used frogs to produce certain electric effects ; 
they gave no good reason why they did it, but 
continued to do so, affirming that it was the only 
way^he thing could be done. It was not until 
long after, a young student had demonstrated 
the fact that damp paper served a better purpose, 
and was much easier managed, that his teaching 
was adopted, and came into use. What serves the 
purpose of progress in one age, hinders and 
obstructs in another. The doctrine of vicarious 
atonement is a frog that has served its purpose, 
not only as a frog, but as a tadpole ; in the Mosaic 
as well as in the Christian Church. 

This pious cant about the love we have for our 
blessed Jesus, when taken in contrast with our 
treatment of men as exhibited in what is called 
Christian trade and commerce, is too thin ; no gold- 
beater ever pounded the like ; it is an admixture 
of love to God, the divine Father, and love to our 



TEACHINGS OF JESUS. 51 

lowest animal self, which in its unsettled condition 
we call hell; it is a necessary state, a productive 
condition, that serves the purpose of divine econ- 
omy. All the different departments of the infer- 
nal abode are useful, and productive of good, but 
it is useless to attempt to establish the Church of 
God, or even keep a comfortable hotel, in that de- 
partment of nature. The heavens and hells are es- 
sential ; no man, however well he has surveyed the 
territory, can draw an exact dividing line between 
them : they mix and blend like the colors of the 
rainbow ; they shoot up and reflect like the north- 
ern lights ; they are as inseparably connected as 
the sovereignty of God and the agency of man. 
In short, it is the duality of nature, which, like the 
poles, act and react upon each other. 

The pure in heart see God ; no absolute evil, 
no human soul, is utterly incorrigible to them ; all 
things serve the purpose of the divine will. 

The meek inherit the earth ; they have left the 
animal plane of thought, motive, and action, as 
we leave squeezed lemons and oranges. The good 
all extracted, they have skimmed the cream from 
off the milk of human kindness, condensed, solid- 



52 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

ified, and crystallized it here on earth, in the fire 
of love, so as to reflect the glory of God in the 
regeneration of man. 



THE APOSTOLATE OF MAN. 

Hearts of love and souls of daring, in the world's high field 
of action, 

Ye who cherish God's commandments, bending not to rank 
or faction : 

Ye whose life in slothful pleasure never sinks nor idly stag- 
nates, 

Ye who wield the scales of justice, weighing peasant men 
with magnates, 

Lo ! the voice of benediction falls upon you from on high : 

Ye are chosen, ye are missioned, ye are watched by heaven's 
eye! 

Ye have voices, thought, and feelings, they were given by 

God to bless you : 
Pour them forth, till tyrants hear you, till they fear you, and 

redress you ; 
Ye have friends in all God's servants, friends in heaven with 

power supernal, 
Friends in all who worship justice, all who fear the great 

eternal : 
Raise your voices from the Forum, challenge wrong upon its 

throne, 
Let your avalanchine warnings sweep the earth from zone to 

zone ! 
***** 

Speak to kings, like Paul to Festus, till they own the truths 
ye teach them ; 

Speak to men like Christ to Lazarus, till the breath of life 
shall reach them ; 

Though ye lie like Paul, in fetters, angel hands shall ope your 
prison : 

Though ye die, as died the Prophets, trust ye still, your 
prayers have risen ! 

Pause not ! fear not, bold reformers ! grapple still each hu- 
man ban ! 

Ye are prophets of the future, the Apostolate of Man ! 

— Duganne. 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 53 



AETIOLE X. 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION JOSEPH'S COAT CHRIS- 
TIANITY FROM AN INTELLECTUAL STANDPOINT RE- 
LIGIOUS PERSECUTION INGERSOLL IN SEARCH OP 

THE GODS, AND THE WORK HE IS DOING. 



The Christian religion, as understood, taught, 
and practised in the literal church, is a failure, ex- 
cept as means to ends. 

It is a worn-out garment unbecoming the age in 
which we live — a sort of " linsey-woolsey " patch- 
work, that has begun to come apart. Allegor- 
ically speaking, it is the Joseph's coat of many 
colors, dipped in blood (it is the coat we are 
describing, and not the Joseph that was sold into 
Egypt) . Each denomination of Christendom is a 
patch that distorts and obscures the truth which 
underlies and seeks expression in the various 
denominational garbs assumed. 

Christianity, from an intellectual standpoint, 



54 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

consists and includes not only the teachings of 
Jesus — the apostles, the fathers of the Church, 
but also the creeds and practices of the Christian 
churches and Christian nations throughout the 
world. As such, it is as much a matter of his- 
tory to be decided upon in regard to its merit and 
authority, as anything else. 

I quote largely from Ingersoll (supplying the 
words in italic) , an able exponent on the external 
plane, in search of the gods. He is a noble fel- 
low, doing a good work. To say the least, he is 
ready to do it when the time comes ; in fact, it is 
in part from reading his Oration on the Gods that 
I have been induced to publish this brief com- 
pendium of what the Christ really is — what its 
teachings really are. He says, in the conclusion 
of his work : 

"Religious persecution springs from a due ad- 
mixture of love towards God and hatred towards 
man. 

" The terrible religious wars that inundated the 
world with blood tended, at least, to bring all 
religion into disgrace and hatred. Thoughtful 
people began to question the divine origin of a 
religion that made its believers hold the rights of 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 55 

others in absolute contempt. A few began to 
compare Christianity with the religions of heathen 
people, and were forced to admit that the differ- 
ence was hardly worth dying for. They also 
found that other nations were even happier and 
more prosperous than their own. They began to 
suspect that their religion, after all, was not of 
much real value. 

w For three hundred years the Christian world 
endeavored to rescue from the * Infidel ' the 
empty sepulchre of Christ. For three hundred 
years the armies of the Cross were baffled and 
beaten by the victorious hosts of an impudent 
impostor. This immense fact sowed the seeds of 
distrust throughout all Christendom, and millions 
began to lose confidence in a God who had been 
vanquished by Mohammed . The people also found 
that commerce made friends where religion made 
enemies, and that religious zeal was utterly incom- 
patible with peace between nations or individuals. 
They discovered that those who loved the gods 
most were apt to love men least ; that the arro- 
gance of universal forgiveness was amazing ; that 
the most malicious had the effrontery to pray for 



56 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

their enemies, and that humility and tyranny were 
the fruit of the same tree. 

w For ages a deadly conflict has been waged be- 
tween a few brave men and women of thought and 
genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant 
religious mass on the other. This is the war be- 
tween Science and Faith. The few have appealed 
to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the 
known, and to happiness here in this world. 
The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to 
miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to mis- 
ery hereafter. The few have said, ? Think ! ' The 
many have said, ? Believe ! ' 

rr The first doubt was the womb and cradle of 
progress, and, from the first doubt, man has 
continued to advance. Men began to investigate, 
and the church began to oppose. The astronomer 
scanned the heavens, while the church branded his 
grand forehead with the word ? Infidel/ and now, 
not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a 
Christian name. In spite of all religion, the geol- 
ogist penetrated the earth, read her history in books 
of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom, sou- 
venirs of all the ages. Old ideas perished in the 
retort of the chemist, and useful truths took their 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 57 

places. One by one religious conceptions have 
been placed in the crucible of science, and thus 
far nothing but dross has been found. A new 
world has been discovered by the microscope ; 
everywhere has been found the infinite ; in every 
direction man has investigated and explored, and 
nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the 
footstep of any being superior to, or independent 
of, nature. Nowhere has been discovered the 
slightest evidence of any interference from with- 
out; it must come from within. 

K These are the sublime truths that enabled man 
to throw off the yoke of superstition. These are 
the splendid facts that snatched the sceptre of 
authority from the hands of priests. 

"In that vast cemetery, called the past, are most 
of the religions of men, and there, too, are nearly 
all their gods. The sacred temples of India were 
ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over 
the painted and pictured walls cling and creep 
the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four 
heads and four arms ; Vishnu, the sombre, the 
punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his 
crescent, and his necklace of skulls ; Siva, the de- 
stroyer, red with seas of blood ; Kali, the god- 



58 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

dess ; Draupadi, the white-armed, and Crishna, 
the Christ, of unfolding nature, all passed away 
and left the thrones of heaven desolate. Along: 
the banks of the sacred Nile, Isis no longer wan- 
dering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The 
shadow of Typhon's scowl falls no more upon the 
waves. The sun rises as of yore, and his golden 
beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but Mem- 
non is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred 
fanes are lost in desert sands ; the dusty mum- 
mies are still waiting for the resurrection promised 
by their priests, and the old beliefs, wrought in 
curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of 
a language lost and dead. Odin, the author of 
life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant 
Ymir, strode long ago from the icy halls of the 
North; and Thor, with iron glove and glit- 
tering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth 
no more. Broken are the circles and cromlechs 
of the ancient Druids ; fallen upon the summits of 
the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss, are 
the sacred cairns. The divine fires of Persia and 
of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the 
past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to 
feed, the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 59 

still ; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown 
aside ; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white 
bosom heaves no more with love. The streams 
still murmur, but no naiads bathe ; the trees still 
wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. 
The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not 
even the beautiful women can lure them back, and 
even Danse lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. 
Hushed forever are the thunders of Sinai ; lost are 
the voices of the prophets, and the land, once flow- 
ing with milk and honey, is but a desert waste. 
One by one the myths have faded from the clouds ; 
one by one the phantom host has disappeared, and 
one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken 
their places. The supernatural has almost gone, 
but the natural remains. The gods have fled, but 
man is here. 

" * Nations, like individuals, have their periods of 
youth, of manhood and decay.' Keligions are the 
same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them 
all. The gods, created by the nations, must per- 
ish with their creators . They were created by men , 
and, like men, they must pass aAvay. The deities 
of one age are the by-words of the next. The 
religion of our day and country is no more exempt 



(50 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

from the sneer of the future than the others have 
been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat 
upon the world's throne. When the sceptre 
passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the 
homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce 
valor, swept to empire, and Jove put on the pur- 
ple of authority. The earth trembled with the 
tread of Rome's intrepid sons, and Jupiter 
grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of 
heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her ter- 
ritory, with the red sword of war, carved out the 
ruling nations of the world, and now Christ sits 
upon the old throne. Who will be his successor? 
w Day by day religious conceptions grow less and 
less intense. Day by day the old spirit dies out 
of book and creed. The burning enthusiasm, the 
quenchless zeal of the early church have gone, 
never, never to return. The ceremonies remain, 
but the ancient faith is fading out of the human 
heart. The worn-out arguments fail to convince, 
and denunciations that once blanched the faces of 
a race, excite in us only derision and disgust. As 
time rolls on the miracles grow mean and small, 
and the evidences our fathers thought conclusive 
utterly fail to satisfy us. There is an f irrepressi- 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 61 

ble conflict ' between external religion and science, 
and they cannot peaceably occupy the same brain 
nor the same world. Christianity must come forth 
and show itself upon a higher plane. 

* While utterly discarding all creeds, and deny- 
ing the truth of all religions, there is neither in my 
heart nor upon my lips a sneer for the hopeful, lov- 
ing and tender souls who believe that from all this 
discord will result a perfect harmony ; that every 
evil will in some mysterious way become a good, 
and that above and over all there is a being who, 
in some way, will reclaim and glorify every one 
of the children of men ; but for the creeds of 
those who glibly prove that salvation is almost 
impossible ; that damnation is almost certain ; that 
the highway of the universe leads to hell ; who fill 
life with fear, and death with horror ; who curse 
the cradle and mock the tomb, it is impossible to 
entertain other than feelings of pity, contempt and 
scorn. 

"Eeason, Observation and Experience — the 
Holy Trinity of Science — have taught us that 
happiness is the only good ; that the time to be 
happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make 
others so. This is enough for us. In this belief 



62 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

we are content to live and die. If, by any possi- 
bility, the existence of a power superior to, and 
independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, 
there will then be time enough to kneel. Until 
then, let us stand erect. 

"Notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all 
ages have battled for the rights of man, and have 
at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty 
and justice, we are constantly charged by the 
church with tearing down without building again. 
The church should by this time know that it is 
utterly impossible to rob men of their opinions. 
The history of religious persecution fully estab- 
lishes the fact that the mind necessarily resists and 
defies every attempt to control it by violence. 
The mind necessarily clings to old ideas until pre- 
pared for the new. The moment we comprehend 
the truth, as it was in Jesus, all erroneous ideas 
are of necessity cast aside. 

w A surgeon once called upon a poor cripple and 
kindly offered to render him any assistance in his 
power. The surgeon began to discourse very 
learnedly upon the nature and origin of disease ; 
of the curative properties of certain medicines ; 
of the advantages of exercise, air and light, and 



" THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. 63 

of the various ways in which health and strength 
could be restored. These remarks were so full 
of good sense, and discovered so much profound 
thought and accurate knowledge, that the cripple, 
becoming thoroughly alarmed, cried out, *Do not, 
I pray you, take away my crutches. They are 
my only support, and without them I should be 
miserable indeed!' ? I am not going,' said the 
surgeon, 'to take away your crutches. I am 
going to cure you, and then you will throw the 
crutches away yourself.' 

w For the vagaries of the clouds the infidels pro- 
prose to substitute the realities of earth ; for super- 
stition, the splendid demonstrations and achieve- 
ments of science ; and for theological tyranny, the 
chainless liberty of thought. 

" We do not say that we have discovered all ; 
that our doctrines are the all in all of truth. We 
know of no end to the development of man. We 
cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter 
and force. The history of one monad is as un- 
known as that of the universe ; one drop of water 
is as wonderful as all the seas ; one leaf as all the 
forests ; and one grain of sand as all the stars. 

"We are not endeavoring to chain the future, 



64 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

but to free the present. We are not forging fet- 
ters for our children, but we are breaking those 
our fathers made for us. We are the advocates 
of inquiry, of investigation and thought. This of 
itself is an admission that we are not perfectly 
satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has 
not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds 
walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the 
highways of thought. We do not pretend to have 
circumnavigated everything, and to have solved 
all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better 
to love men than to fear gods ; that it is grander 
and nobler to think and investigate for yourself 
than to repeat a creed, or quote Scripture like a 
religious parrot, with the countenance of a dys- 
peptic owl. We are satisfied that there can be 
but little liberty on earth while men worship a 
tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accom- 
plish everything in our day ; but we want to do 
what good we can, and to render all the service pos- 
sible in the holy cause of human progress. We 
know that doing away with gods and supernatural 
persons and powers is not at an end. It is a means 
to an end ; the real end being the happiness of man. 
"Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. 



THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION. G5 

Driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of 
commerce. 

"We are laying the foundations of the grand 
temple of the future — not the temple of all the 
gods, but of all the people — wherein, with ap- 
propriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of 
Humanity. We are doing what little we can to 
hasten the coming of the day when society shall 
cease producing millionaires and mendicants — 
gorged indolence and famished industry — truth 
in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. 
We are looking for the time when the useful shall 
be the honorable ; y^hen the true shall be the beau- 
tiful, and when Reason, throned upon the world's 
brain, shall be the King of kings and God of 
gods." 



" Let there be Light ! said God ; 
And o'er the blooming sod 

Broke forth the Morn ! 
Glad nature smiled in mirth, 
While beauty filled the earth, 

And flowers were born ! " 



66 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



ARTICLE XI. 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE THE LAW OF LIFE 

THE FIRST AND SECOND COMING OF THE CHRIST 

PRAYER ILLUSTRATED — THE CONDITION OF OUR COUN- 
TRY WHAT IS RECOMMENDED WHAT SHOULD BE 

DONE, AND HOW TO DO IT — OUR FINAL HOME. 



Light dawns upon the world; where we stand, 
the sun does not really shine, but stars reflect its 
light, and flowers are born. The so-called infidel 
and sceptic are doing their part to awake and 
unfold the day. Christianity, as understood 
and practised in Church and State, throughout 
Christendom, is a misnomer ; the time is at hand 
when it will be as difficult to find a fighting Chris- 
tian, a contentious stickler for creed or canonical, 
as it is to find a white blackbird. 

Christianity, properly understood, is no fail- 
ure. Those of us who think it is, have only seen 
the sign of Jonah — the great fish — the stable, 
and not the church, in which the Christ is born — 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 67 

the Joseph's coat — the grave in which the allegor- 
ical Lazarus sleepeth. 

We are familiar with the literal betrayal, cruci- 
fixion, and entombment of Jesus, in whom the 
Christ obtained ; but so far as its spiritual resur- 
rection in our hearts and consciences is concerned, 
many of us have not even heard. Possibly we have 
only seen the husks of truth upon which swine are 
fed, not even the interior shell, to say nothing of 
the meat — the life-giving substance within. The 
Christ of Christianity is not dependent upon the 
Bible, the teachings of Jesus, the Apostles, the 
Fathers of the Church, or the creeds that have 
preceded us ; they may not be adapted to our 
states and conditions. The Christ is the un- 
folding — the infallible word — the Bible-maker 
adapted to all states and conditions of men. What 
we need, and what we must have, in order to be 
saved, in a good sense of that term, is an infal- 
lible interpreter ; in short, the opening up within 
our consciousness of the Christ, that shall be, unto 
us human souls, what instinct is to the animal king- 
dom — the controlling power that directs all its 
actions. The mistake we have made, has been in 



68 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

attempting to establish the kingdom of heaven 
upon the animal plane. 

As the monkey and the ape, as well as the lion 
and the lamb, preceded us in the order of creation, 
so the external forms and teachings of Christian- 
ity preceded and made possible the more spiritual 
and perfect, which is now in order. "Listen that 
ye may hear, seek that ye may find, knock that it 
may be opened up unto you." 

The allegorical serpent in the Garden of Eden 
was the Christ of nature ; it beguiled, that it 
might unfold a higher life ; it was God's mode of 
operation. It tempted Jesus in the wilderness, 
that it might unfold the way. The an-hungered- 
ment was in that direction ; it forsook its exter- 
nal self in the crucifixion, that it might reveal the 
truth. It reorganized the external particles of its 
spiritual body, that it might demonstrate its life, 
its transforming power, on matter as well as on 
mind. The allegorical serpent in the garden 
represents the unprogressed, the unregenerated 
soul of man. In other words, the Christ in the 
unregenerate soul is a serpent. Regeneration 
transforms itself into the dove of divine life. 

Temptation is the going out through some de- 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 69 

partment of our affectional nature after the cause 
which moved the soul to act. It supposes desire 
and an opportunity to gratify it. It is a response 
to the law of love. Every soul not absolutely 
good is liable to temptation. The more perfect 
or progressed the soul, the more spiritual or re- 
fined the tempter. Our safety lies in our depend- 
ence upon the God within ; hence the prayer, 
"Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
evil," etc. The motives which actuate us when 
we yield to temptation, are not the result of spir- 
itual contemplations. In such cases we do not 
pause to look deep down in the fount of life. 
Had we done so, the immediate cause which 
moved us to act would have lost its power to con- 
trol. Love would have risen above the sediment 
of our animal nature, and we might have been 
repelled and restrained from the comparative evil, 
by the divinity which enlightens our consciences 
and shapes our ends. 

Love, which is the cause of spiritual illumina- 
tion, is free. It comes welling up in the hearts 
and consciences of harmonious souls, from the 
divine within, like water in a literal well. It 
flows into the soul, and through its affectional 



70 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

nature, from the fountain of life, in accordance 
with law. Temptation is a means through which 
the unfolding spirit is enabled to receive spiritual 
emanations of truth from each, and impart to all. 
The law through which this is done is eternal, and 
cannot be broken or rendered inactive. What we 
call sin, or the transgression of the law, is obedi- 
ence to that same law in its more external spheres 
of being. When we consider that love in the an- 
imal is blind, that its degree of spiritual develop- 
ment has not unfolded an individualized conscious- 
ness of a better or best state and capacity, we see 
the use of temptation — that it is an appointed 
means to unfold a freedom of the affections which, 
under God and his providences, must ultimate 
perfection in the human soul. 

Each step we take as we journey home to God 
is a degree in the spheres of good and use. As 
we journey through the discrete orders of love, 
we leave behind, as dead and worthless, those 
things which once allured us outward and upward 
in life. The things which once tempted us have 
lost their power. 

The present discordant conditions of the reli- 
gious world demand reformations calculated to 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 71 

develop the spiritual capacities of the soul. Or- 
ganizations, as means to ends, is in harmony with 
nature — it is God's mode of operation ; we see 
it in every department of life ; every living thing 
furnishes an illustration. Each human soul is an 
organized power, more or less advanced as an in- 
strumentality in the process of unfolding — a con- 
scious individual receptacle of divine life in the 
great humanitary man. The first dispensation is 
doing; its work. It has shaken external religion 
from its centre ; its cardinal dogmas are surren- 
dered as uncertain or provisional ; its intellectual 
framework has given way. The repose, the unity, 
the permanency of the literal Church has gone for- 
ever. The unguided feelings and fluctuations of 
moral conception take their place in continued 
agitation and strife. They cannot organize, con- 
struct, and bring order out of the intellectual 
anarchy which prevails. This stage of develop- 
ment is the Samson among the Philistines. It 
has hold of our dual nature. The house divided 
against itself must come down. The tablets of 
stone which contain the Commandments written 
within the soul by the finger of God, must be 
smitten ; the fountains of the mighty deep must 



72 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

be broken up, so that light, love, and life may 
flow from the within, enlightening and inspiring 
the progressive soul to discover and occupy the 
spiritual temple — the house not made with hands, 
which cannot be destroyed. The present discord- 
ant conditions demand new designs fresh from the 
foundries of heaven, the creative spheres — the 
key-boards of creation — so conditioned that the 
sons of God can pla} 7 ^ upon the organs of life, 
adapting each part of our compound and complex 
body to all other parts, bringing the whole into an 
attuned at-one-ment, thus creatively unfolding the 
word — the kingdom within. The supply of such 
a demand necessarily unfolds the Christ, the 
quickening spirit which destroys the old, and has 
power to construct the new, to reveal the eternal. 
The new Jerusalem — the sea of glass — is a 
universal necessity. The Christ of Christianity 
demands a new government, a theocracy begotten 
in the hearts and consciences of all mankind, the 
original and supreme love so conceived and condi- 
tioned as to demonstrate in earth-life the gospel 
of peace and good- will to all mankind. Then, 
and not till then, will war cease, and charity, or 
spiritual non-resistance, be possible to all men. 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 73 

Spiritual demands causatively create spiritual 
supplies. It is difficult to determine which is 
first, the demand or the supply. It seems like 
the discovery of truth in the Word, to have 
existed before it was born. While the unfolding 
child is being developed to make the demand, the 
supply is being unfolded to satisfy the demand when 
made. The Christ which preeminently obtained in 
Jesus has long since gone to the Spiritual Universe, 
the Father's house of many mansions, to prepare a 
supply. The coming man has literally rapped at 
the door of our understanding, and now waits at 
the gate of life, that he may enter, organize, and 
supply all our spiritual needs. The needs of the 
nineteenth century demand a theocracy, a union 
of states in love and affection, a blending of har- 
monious souls in intimate communion with God, 
so that the loves, desires," and interests of each 
can expressively reflect the good of all as it exists 
in the Divine Father. Such a union of spiritual 
states and governments would abolish all the evils 
of life without enacting or abolishing a single law. 
Attraction and repulsion seem to be the means 
through which the Creator unfolds Himself in the 
works of creation. 



74 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

The law of love pervades every department of 
Nature. It is God's mode of operation. " God 
is love." Mind and matter, like cause and effect, 
are inseparably connected. Each expression of 
life, each partly progressed effect in the mineral 
and the vegetable as well as in the animal king- 
dom, is true to itself, the spirit or God-power 
which provides and controls in its sphere of activ- 
ity. In the more external manifestations of life 
in which the lawgiver has not obtained a harmo- 
nious expression, the law seems to clash. Were it 
not for the fact that the centrifugal and centrip- 
etal forces balance each other, or are balanced in 
love, the soul of the universe, the great human- 
itary man, would fly asunder and be destroyed. 
"Were it not for the fact that the inner love — the 
Omnipresent law — overrules and controls all the 
departments of life, individual sovereignty would 
be a curse ! Were it not for the fact that the ex- 
ercise of what little sovereignty or freedom of 
affection we at present possess, was the only 
means of obtaining a more perfected state, we 
might question the propriety of its exercise ; as 
it is, we feel that there are goods and uses that we 
have little or no conception of. We perceive what 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 75 

to us constitutes the good, the better, and the best. 
We know by experience (it constitutes .the sum 
and substance of our religion) that we are bound 
by the law of God through which he is reproduc- 
ing himself in us. 

It is impossible to study Nature with a spiritual 
desire to discover the purest beauty, the truest 
good, without unfolding the Divine within. It is 
the law of life — the result of attraction, tempta- 
tion, and repulsion. The different spheres of 
good and use which the unfolding soul learns by 
experience, as it journeys home to God, satisfies 
the traveller that there is an internal department 
of his nature in which the Infinite Spirit is en- 
throned in love. It is by passing through the 
discrete orders of love, that we perceive the uses 
of war and all the comparative evils which self- 
love and blind passions have projected upon the 
race. It is not until or only in proportion as we 
learn their good or use that the soul is saved, or 
past their need. There is no salvation from evil 
within its sphere. The exercise of our affections 
in the plane which we occupy is destined to pro- 
ject us above it. It is the only means by which 
we may obtain the good we need. Temptation is 



76 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

a good; it has a use, it is the divinely-appointed 
way through which the Creator unfolds His cre- 
ation. It has been said, "Covet earnestly the 
best gifts " ; it is right so to do, but there is a bet- 
ter way. It is called charity — a quality of love, 
or state of the affections, which finds its true 
affinity within itself, the holiest of the holy ; the 
Christ, or Lamb of God, which taketh away the 
sins of the world by lifting us above it. 

Our experience and observation in Christianity 
leads us to the conclusion that we, images of the 
Almighty, upon whom we are dependent for in- 
spiration to understand and be instructed in spir- 
itual realities, ought not to expect very spiritual 
communications, or much satisfaction in spiritual 
communion, until the spiritual desire is more 
fully awakened within us. ? We must be born 
again ; " and not only so, but again and again we 
must be transformed by the renewing of our spir- 
itual affections, as we pass up, step by step, 
toward the top of the mount where everything 
that is, is true and right. I am satisfied that in 
our Father's house, the spiritual universe, there 
are many mansions, occupied by mediatorial 
minds, through w T hich each soul born of the spirit, 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 77 

or in the affection of good and truth, may go or 
be drawn in accordance with the law of love into 
the very presence-chamber of the Almighty, where 
love absolute and eternal is so expressed as to ren- 
der and adapt itself — its good — its use, unto all 
conditions of being. 

We believe it may be possible for all in the 
spheres of charity to so blend their spiritual as- 
pirations as to move the Almighty, causing love 
to flow through the understanding in such a, man- 
ner that error, discord, or deception regarding the 
way of life, would be impossible. We believe in 
spiritual realities ; that the spiritual universe is 
within the material, and is its constructive apart- 
ment, which has within it the divine essence or 
creative power to fashion substance in its own 
image, through which it unfolds and reflects itself 
in proportion to the degree of spirituality ob- 
tained. We are satisfied that there are many lost 
or unfound conditions of soul in the spiritual 
universe, as yet unoccupied departments in our 
Father's house, except by the unborn sons, which 
exist as essence in the bosom of the Father. 

All such unfound or discordant conditions of 
being, which in the affection of evil, delight in 



78 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

mischief, malice, and war — incorrigible and use- 
less as they seem to be, have their origin in good ; 
and though separated from it by impassable gulfs 
of unattuned love and affection, are and must re- 
main (so long as incorrigible) necessities as means 
to ends, stepping-places in the eternal standing 
stool of law, which, under God, is our schoolmas- 
ter pricking and paining us, except we stand erect. 
We believe that the mind, the inherent life or spirit 
in matter, is one and the same thing in all human 
souls, and that the difference in manifestation is 
the result of peculiar individualization, brought 
about by the providences of God, through which 
each soul, not finally incorrigible, obtains the 
same essential elements, differently proportioned, 
combined, and conditioned. These differences, 
which, under God, unfold the dynamics, rhythm, 
and gamut of life, will enable each soul, when 
voiced in harmony with the celestial, to under- 
standing^ perform its part in the anthem of life. 
Some are so harmoniously unfolded and spiritual 
in their tendencies, that spiritual love, light, and 
life flow from or through them to bless, reform, 
and beautify all who come within their sphere ; 
they bring the balm from Gilead — the essence of 



* 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 79 

goodness — its oil and wine, which, being poured 
into wounded souls, unfolds the tree of life in the 
garden of the Lord. 

Condition ourselves as best we can, it seems 
difficult, if not impossible, at all times, to pro- 
duce a perfect control of our animal self; and, so 
long as selfishness is in us, error, if not deception, 
is liable to manifest itself. We have found but 
few, if any, that we could feel were the mouth 
of God speaking His infallible word to our souls. 
We have found it necessary to go, and go alone, 
beyond the " watchman upon the walls of Zion," if 
we would see and know the truth. Books and teach- 
ers serve as helps. We have found by experience 
that error sometimes serves the purpose. They 
have served a purpose in all the religions of the 
past. In the consideration of this question, and all 
questions pertaining to the subject, much depends 
upon the definition we give to terms used. There 
is a sense in which we accept each circumstance 
and phenomenon of life as a special manifestation 
of God in His providences ; and in doing this, we 
define truth to be the best expression the absolute 
Being could obtain in the sphere of activity 
through which He is speaking. From this stand- 



80 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

point we accept everything said as true to the 
condition which produced its utterance. The soul 
which actually occupies this position, and lives the 
life of trust, lives in the continual enjoyment of a 
peaceful flow of love and good-will from God 
to all mankind. To such a soul, the incongruities 
and discrepancies which tempt the merely intellec- 
tual man to disbelieve in spiritual realities and in 
a personal God, who creates or fashions substance, 
and takes note of heart-states, and knows and sup- 
plies the requirements of each, do not exist. Faith 
in the God which " does not quench the smoking 
flax or break the bruised reed," begets hope in 
His immediate and direct action through receptive 
instrumentalities. Such a belief, faith and hope, 
enable the believer to so purify his affections as to 
see the Creator in the works of creation ; to hear 
His voice and feel His presence in the most dis- 
cordant and contentious circles, saying, "It is I; 
be not afraid." Such experiences unfold the spir- 
itual capacities of the soul, and resolve its desires 
into an attuned at-one-ment with the purest good 
and truest use, in such a manner as to unfold its 
presence, saying, "Peace, be still. Come up 
higher." 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 81 

God breathes into man the breath of life, and 
he becomes a living soul. The Almighty enlight- 
ens his understanding, and he becomes a quickened 
spirit. We have thought that the human soul, in its 
essential, its spiritual part, is a reproduction of the 
divine — the production of its interior self, the 
Christ; that this was done through receptive 
instrumentalities, in such a manner as to create 
individual responsibilities and capacities, to en- 
joy without multiplying the godhead, increasing 
spirit, or creating matter; that inspiration, and 
the change called death, which is continually 
going on in every living soul, w^ere the means 
through which it was performed ; that there is a 
sense in which God lives, moves, and has His 
being in every living thing. Man is a triune 
being. When harmoniously developed, he is the 
spiritual temple of the living God. It is with 
the spiritual as with the literal or Jewish temple 
— each has its outer, its inner, and inmost courts, 
or holiest of the holy. The one is beautifully 
expressive of the other. The construction, fur- 
niture, and service of the Jewish or literal tem- 
ple, was not the result of blind chance, finite in- 
vention or design ; it was the work of divinely 
6 



82 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

inspired artists and artizans. Probably they did 
not perceive or comprehend the truths or princi- 
ples expressed in the model made, any better 
than we perceive or comprehend the finger of 
God in the phenomena of our day. It was then, 
with the Jewish, the literal temple, as it is now 
with the spiritual, the transcendental temple. 
God, through receptive instrumentalities, is the 
maker and builder thereof; He is the all in all; 
He inspires each and all in their different spheres 
of good and use. There is no devil in hell that 
is not executing God's designs. Each artist and 
artizan will receive his meat in due season. 

The Bible prophets spake as they were moved ; 
theirs was the day of types and shadows. The 
prophets that are to be, will speak as they per- 
ceive, in accordance with their degree of spiritual 
enlightenment ; for the coming is to be the day of 
spiritual realities. The truths of the past will be 
understood; we shall know there is a spirit in 
man, and that the inspiration of the Almighty 
giveth him understanding. Spiritual understand- 
ing — the result of inspiration — is dependent 
upon spiritual activities. It is not a subject or 
thing to be taught ; it is a condition of the soul, 






CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 83 

to be felt and known by experience ; it is some- 
thing that touches the sensation of the soul. The 
principle of inspiration is eternal ; men are dif- 
ferent, and are consequently differently affected 
by it. The laws through which inspiration is 
given are not changed, but the conditions are 
ever changing. Inspiration differs as men differ. 
There is a sense in which the Almighty gives 
the soul understanding, that is above the ordi- 
nary affairs of human life. The spiritual-minded, 
loving soul, who lives in the interior department 
of his being (the temple of the living God) may 
be inspired from the Almighty, the inmost of the 
within, the holiest of the holy. He may com- 
mune with the cherubims and seraphims at the 
altar of eternal life. The quickened spirit, the 
resurrected Christ, may stand forth within him, 
constituting an open door, the way or well of life, 
of which, if a man drink, he will never die. He 
that would come unto God, or be inspired, must 
believe that He is, and that He is the rewarder of 
all those who diligently seek and serve Him in 
spirit and in truth. 

Christianity, properly understood, is the spirit- 
ual communion service and worship of the Infinite 



84 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

Spirit, in spirit and in truth. It is the external 
product of its internal self. Its effects are to 
reflect — tq extend the light of life — to unfold 
the spiritual temple of the living God. It in- 
cludes within its communion all the servants who 
render service in the cause of justice, mercy and 
truth. 

Christians believe in the Infinite Spirit — the Di- 
vine Father — and in being guided by him in com- 
munion and fellowship in the spirit. Christians, 
to a greater or less extent, see the light, hear the 
voice, and feel the presence of the spirit, but know 
not whence it cometh or whither it goeth. 

Spirit is called an immaterial substance ; it 
being more ethereal than the external census of 
the soul, it eludes our grasp. As it cannot be 
weighed or measured, it seems to the materialist 
to have neither weight nor measure, as though it 
did not occupy space, and was incapable of organ- 
ization, extension or division. "As the soul think- 
eth, so is it." To the spiritually blind, who accept 
the literal definition, spirit is not anything but 
breath or wind. To such minds, what we have 
said, or may say, on this subject, is mere transcen- 
dental nonsense — rnetaphysical moonshine. We 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 85 

grant there is some truth as well as beauty in the 
exclamation of the critic : " Behold, what drivelling 
madmen these insane Christians — Nature's jour- 
neymen — are making of themselves." Be it so ; 
but if we can but touch one such soul in the right 
spot, this moonshine will do its work. Truth, the 
great master-builder in Nature, which construc- 
tively unfolds the Christ, will have received an- 
other apprentice ; the spiritual gate will be opened 
to the critic, to walk in as well as criticise. To the 
practical Christian, who is born of the water and of 
the spirit, so as to unfold the departments of his 
material as well as spiritual nature in the pursuit 
of interior good, spirits or spiritual bodies are sub- 
stance — a cogitative substance imbued w x ith in- 
stinct — perception and power to think, feel, and 
act, which unfolds and embodies different qual- 
ities of mind which pervade each other, and per- 
meates all kinds of matter. In this sense, spirit or 
spiritual bodies occupy space — are capable of 
organization, extension and division, by, through, 
or in virtue of individualized intonations of love 
and affection which constitute the dynamics, 
rhythm and gamut of divine life. For aught we 
know, (and the belief is in harmony with every- 



86 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

thing known,) there are as many kinds, condi- 
tions, or qualities of spiritual substance, as there is 
of earth matter, material substance. Probably 
each is destined to unfold and ultimate itself 
through higher forms, to be unfolded by the Cre- 
ator in his highest form of creation. Man, the 
human soul, being the effect of, and the culmi- 
nating point, in the works of creation, neces- 
sarily embodies within himself all the elements, 
all the life-principles of the organized forms or 
soul-expressions of life which preceded him ; they 
constitute the material and spiritual substances 
upon which the human soul subsists. The recep- 
tive soul receives and appropriates these elements, 
these partly unfolded principles of divine life, in 
accordance with the law of God, in its plane of 
development. Such an execution unfolds the di- 
vine form from within the spiritual temple, its 
holiest of the holy, which reforms and regener- 
ates the human soul, causing it to bud, blossom, 
and embody the delicious fruit of eternal life. 

Eternal life and eternal death are interchange- 
able terms, signifying positive and negative states 
which act and react upon each other, thus pro- 
gressively unfolding itself, the principle, the 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 87 

agency implanted within. Eternal life is a con- 
tinued change ; eternal death is the unawakened 
cause of its unfolclraent. We die to the old pro- 
gressively as we are born to the new. The last 
enemy, the old serpent — death — is thus regener- 
eratively transformed into the dove of divine life. 
To the extent we partake of the tree of knowledge, 
we die to the condition of ignorance. Knowledge 
is distinguished from wisdom, in this : that knowl- 
edge is a capacity to do, to partake of the tree 
of life, while wisdom is the thing done, or the 
cheerful unfoldment of the will to do it. The 
trouble with Christendom to-day is more of the 
heart, its affections, its will and " upper-standing," 
than it is of the head — the intellect. Christianity, 
as practised, is little else than a skin of truth, stuffed 
and put on like an extended bustle, which extorts 
and crucifies the maltreated human form. 

The real thing, Christianity, opened up from 
within, tends to unfold, harmonize, and bless, 
not only the possessor, but all that comes within 
its sphere. The shoddy shoes and clothing fur- 
nished through the medium of Christian com- 
merce, is a more truthful criterion to judge Chris- 
tianity by than the profession it makes. 



88 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

Many Christians are looking for some mirac- 
ulous transitions in the affairs of life. There are 
many fathers and mothers in the spiritual Israel, 
who, like Simeon of old, desire and expect some 
especially divine embodiment in human form — 
an Israelite in thought, word, and deed, in whom 
there shall be no guile — that shall stand up among 
the people as a divine centre, clothed with author- 
ity to teach the Christ, to unfold the word, and to 
whom all shall gravitate. What these friends ex- 
pect to see in some one man, we expect to see in 
all men. We see, or think we see, the Christ, the 
coming man, the unfolding word, the soul of the 
spiritual universe, coming to all men. We believe 
each individual soul to be divine in its internal 
nature, each alike central and essential ; all alike 
sons and heirs of immortality ; each a teacher to 
reflect, to contribute, its part through the associate 
soul of the spiritual universe, to unfold and em- 
body the word, the coming man, in the hearts and 
consciences of the race. 

We do not expect to find any individual furnished 
with letters patent from the Court of Heaven, 
granting to him or his the exclusive right to teach, 
reform, or organize. We do not believe that true 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 89 

Religion can be taught, reformed, or organized by 
uninspired man. It is, or has within it, the 
Christ, the teacher, the reformer, which enlightens, 
reforms, and brings the individual through the 
processes of spiritualization into harmony with its 
interior self. 

Christianity is destructive as well as construc- 
tive and creative in its effects — the Christ, or 
quickening spirit, comes not in its first comings to 
bring peace to the soul. It comes to bring the 
sword, to create discord, contention and strife. It 
divides the house against itself. The external, 
the animal department (in which the unregener- 
ated man lives) is divided against its internal or 
spiritual, which allies to God and celestial influ- 
ences. The Divine Spirit, or Christ within the 
holiest of the holy, is not divided ; it is the fathers 
and mothers-in-law, and their demoniac associates, 
which are divided and opposed to the Divine will, 
and strive together for the mastery. The house 
thus divided cannot stand, it must be destroyed ; 
the external or first phase must pass away. Jesus, 
in whom the Christ, the quickened spirit obtained, 
and through whom it spake, said, in exhibiting the 
Jewish Temple, (the model,) it shall be destroyed, 



90 AKTICLES OF FAITH. 

there shall not be one stone left upon another, in 
contemplating his physical dissolution (the dis- 
pensation of blood) , the destruction of the Jewish 
Temple (the dispensation of rights and shadows) , 
and the end of the world (the dispensation of ex- 
ternal authorities, creeds and canonicals) — speak- 
ing of them as one and the same thing, said, " I 
have power to destroy this temple and raise it 
again in three days." The religious world has 
passed through two of these dispensations : the 
Mosaic, that of fear and force, the literal coming 
of Christ, the dispensation of love — and now the 
Christ comes to introduce the third dispensation : 
that of wisdom, which is the product of an enlight- 
ened understanding that affects the hearts and 
consciences of men. Its work is to destroy the 
literal church, the external temple, the house di- 
vided against itself, and causatively construct, or 
creatively reveal, the broad church, the spiritual 
temple, as it exists in the divine mind. The dis- 
pensation of wisdom cannot dawn upon all souls 
at one and the same time. The coming Christ 
depends upon our interior capacity to perceive and 
comprehend ; it finds us occupying different stand- 
points, each differently capacitated from all others, 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 91 

for spiritual enlightenment. We cannot see the 
same light, hear the same voice, or feel the same 
good and use, only as we arrive at like states of 
mental and spiritual growth. The great majority 
of us are still in the house of bondage, the dispen- 
sation of force and fear. Few, very few, have had 
those tables of stone broken within them, so that 
the light of love can reflect the law of the Lord as 
it is written within. 

The actions which we condemn in ourselves and 
others, which many regard as a positive proof of 
spiritual death and moral destruction, we accept as 
evidence of spiritual life and future well-being ; 
they are the external manifestations of internal 
and spiritual activities, and may be medicinal in 
their tendencies. The discordant condition most 
Christians pass through while in the house of bond- 
age, and in the process of regeneration, render 
them exceedingly sensitive to surroundings, and 
liable to demoniac infections. While journeying 
through the wilderness home to the New Jerusa- 
lem, the spiritual Canaan, there awaits the unfold- 
ing soul successive trials and temptations calculated 
to unfold and embody light, love and life. 

We do not suppose this condition can be fully 



92 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

obtained while we remain in the mortal body. We 
know by experience and observation that dissatis- 
faction, unrest, and suffering, do not always de- 
pend upon our own grossness or short-comings. 
Such is the solidity of society, such our relations 
to each other in the great humanitary man, that 
we necessarily suffer for others, and must continue 
so to do until all are brought into an attuned at- 
one-ment with the highest good. The more re- 
fined and spiritually beautiful the soul, the more 
intense the agony ; and long after nothing remains 
in the affections to tempt or respond to tempta- 
tions, the soul may be so conditioned as to almost 
despair, and be caused to exclaim, " My God, my 
God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 

Christianity, as defined, is not dying out ; it is 
entombed in the rock of ages. Its truths are 
eternal ; they are the words of the living God, 
which has sought and must continue to seek a 
perfect and still more perfected form of expression, 
which is limited by our capacity to hear and pro- 
nounce — to receive and express. The soul that 
has heard the voice, that has perceived the light, 
cannot remain unmoved in, or go back to the lit- 
eral church. 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 93 

Merely an intellectual acceptance of the facts 
and philosophy of Christianity, will not reform or 
regenerate the individual or the world ; it may 
serve as seed for future generations, but unless the 
truth be received in the soil of the soul, the gar- 
den of the Lord, and spring up through the under- 
standing, it withers away, and, so far as the 
individual or age is concerned, dies out. I have 
never known a Christian that was born of the 
water, (intellectual perception of the doctrine,) 
and of the spirit, (enlightened affection,) that went 
away. Who is there that ever drank of the well, 
or entered the way of spiritual life, that did not 
hunger and thirst for more, and know by expe- 
rience that such hunger and thirsting was not in 
vain? Why should they go away? To whom 
should they go ? Where else is the ' ' tree of life " 
— the unfolding word of God ? 

Christianity is not dying out, it is taking deeper 
root in the hearts and consciences of those that 
accept it. There are individual souls scattered all 
over the country that have from internal necessi- 
ties withdrawn themselves from uncongenial asso- 
ciations, and stand for the present as individual 
magnets (spiritual lightning-rods) attracting light 



94 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

and love from higher life, sending it forth to all 
aspiring sonls to warm and purify the earth. 

A pure theory unfolds a correct life and happy 
practice. Figuratively speaking, we have friends 
among the ists in all the isms that have obtained 
since Noah came out of the Ark. Some of them 
are good because of their religion, organization, 
surroundings, etc. ; others are good in spite of 
their religion and surroundings. A hard experi- 
ence has in many cases opened up the better way 
— the paths of peace. Those that have drawn 
the finest lines of metaphysical or qualitative dis- 
tinctions, have, as a rule, been the most humble, 
self-sacrificing and devoted to what all enlight- 
ened nations accept as justice, mercy and truth. 
The fact that a soul makes fine distinctions be- 
tween the good, better and best, and knows that 
it is not possible for it to do those things which 
others delight in doing, does not necessarily im- 
ply self-righteousness ; often quite the opposite ; 
and in many cases it evinces a debt of gratitude, 
springing up within, to be paid (through less for- 
tunate souls ) to the infinite Giver who guides and 
protects in the way of life. 

We have no doubt that such souls as are shad- 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 95 

owed forth in the characters of Abel, Enoch, 
Melchiseclek and Jesus, may suffer, for the sins of 
others, far beyond our capacity to conceive ; and 
because of such suffering, open a fount of affec- 
tion, a degree of spirituality in themselves, and 
others, that otherwise could not have been. This 
is a vicarious atonement that causatively creates 
sons of God through the transforming power of 
love. 

We believe we have, or may have, some control 
over our love — the power that attracts and is at- 
tracted. To illustrate : We have many friends, 
both men and women, scattered all over the coun- 
try, some of them choice souls, about fit for the 
kingdom of heaven, without further regeneration. 
Such is our relation to them as unfolding effects 
of the same cause, that though we may not have 
seen them for years, we can, by coming into what 
we call the contemplative mood, come into their 
sphere and look into their affectional nature — 
what we call the Garden of the Lord — and obtain, 
in some sense, the advantage of their presence. If 
we find ourselves leaning toward any one of them 
in a sense that tempts us to worship them, or 
threatens the freedom of our affections, we may, 



93 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

by examining carefully, though sometimes we may 
have to look long and close, find some fault or im- 
perfection, which saves us from idolatry, and en- 
ables us to worship God the Father, as exhibited 
in the congenial soul, which was the means of our 
temptation. If, on the other hand, we find ourselves 
related, in business or otherwise, to contentious 
and to us disagreeable persons, and are tempted to 
despise and shun them, we may so enter into the 
spheres of causation, consider their proclivities, 
tendencies and surroundings, so as to perceive the 
why and the how their better nature has not been 
understood, even to themselves ; thus we may be 
enabled to reflect the light of life from the saviours 
above us to the souls around and beneath. 

"Fighting is by nature dear to the heart of man. 
The men with swords and spears, with needle-guns 
and rifled cannon, have by no means had a monop- 
oly of the business. The scholars, the theologi- 
ans, the men of the closet, have kept up a war- 
fare quite as extensive and energetic. To men in 
earnest to advance the truth, the polemical method 
has often seemed the natural, and indeed the only 
way. It destroys charity, and rouses the spirit 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 97 

of strife. The odium theologicum has passed into 
a proverb for bitterness. 

" No religious belief ever existed among honest 
men that had not in it some genuine sustaining 
element. Every belief which has been earnestly 
held, has been the result of an effort toward truth ; 
it has attained something, but has come short of 
much. The way to remedy the defect is to give 
higher truth on the same line. Instead of wrench- 
ing from men's grasp their imperfect beliefs, we 
are to offer them nobler. We are not to violently 
uproot error, but to plant beside it truth so vital 
that it will absorb into itself and lift into higher 
life the soul of inferior growth. 

"Whoever would bring men into clearer light, 
must not content himself with a protest against 
old errors. He must get hold of the moral truth 
which gave the error its strength, and by getting 
deeper into the same truth, supersede the error in 
its stronghold. 

"Calvinism, for example, will be but idly as- 
sailed by any one who has not grasped all the 
truth in it, and more besides. The correction of 
the system lies not in a denial of these principles, 
but in an addition to them ; in the farther truth, 
7 



98 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

that in the heart of this supreme God love is 
supreme ; in the appeal, not only to men's con- 
sciences, but to their hearts. 

"All the dogmatic systems, all the ecclesiastical 
structures, which seem to some thinkers mere ab- 
surdities and incumbrances, have grown up to 
meet some want of human nature. If they are 
imperfect, the remedy is not to tear them up, but 
to provide for the want in a better way. 

K To men with any touch of the soldier in them, 
fighting for the truth is a very pleasant occupation ! 
Serving with the truth is a different matter. The 
highest gift of knowledge, the prophet's inspir- 
ation, the hero's courage, find their right place only 
when they are used in the service of love." 

The first coming of the Christ was through the 
love and affections ; it came with a sword ; its 
effect was war, contention, and strife. It now 
comes through the will and the understanding. 
It comes with the olive-branch, — its effect is to 
be love, joy, and peace. 

The fatherhood of God, the motherhood of na- 
ture, and the brotherhood of man, act and react 
upon each other ; it is the trinity of life ; they, or 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE, 99 

rather it in them, is unfolding and perfecting itself 
in us. 

Conditions are everything. "Law is a state- 
ment of conditions," Prayer is not necessarily an 
external speech ; it does not consist in teasing, or 
attempting to instruct, persuade, or overaw the 
Almighty. 

Behold the flowers of the field, the violet, the 
lily, and the rose ; they ask in accordance with the 
law of life — as mustard-seed they seek growth, as 
leaven they work — knocking at the doors of life, 
and the beauties of nature are opened up unto 
them. 

Behold the poor, wayfaring man, clothed in 
rags, bleeding at every pore, perishing for love, 
friendship, and religious associations worthy the 
name, — picture in your mind's eye such an indi- 
vidual, sick, lame, halt, and blind, not knowing 
his disease, that he has a father's house, a home in 
heaven, that there is a balm in Grilead, a physi- 
cian there ; enlighten his understanding, to per- 
ceive and comprehend the facts in the case, and 
he is instantly transformed — every part of him 
becomes a prayer. 

Such is the condition of Christendom to-day; 



100 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

it is sick, lame, halt, and blind ; the human fam- 
ily is famishing for love, and know it not. 

This country, so far as dogmatic religion is con- 
cerned, is on the downward grade. There are 
breakers ahead ; there is an engine coming. 
Clear the theological track of all its rubbish, or it 
will be ground to powder on the threshing-floor 
of divine love, its isms and husks of truth will be 
blown as chaff before the wind. The swords and 
spears of theological controversy must be trans- 
formed into mental ploughshares and spiritual 
pruning-hooks. We, as a people, must unfold 
our spiritual natures in accordance with the law 
of love, or be crushed, like the allegorical worm, 
through the brutal power of fear and force, god- 
ward. 

Some of our religious friends recommend spik- 
ing a theological sign-board on the engine. They 
mean well, but are wofully mistaken ; if we do it, 
and insist upon fear and force, we shall extort and 
destroy ourselves. They that take the "sword 
must be slain by it." The proper remedy is time 
and common sense, the quickening of the spirit, 
and the inspiration of the Almighty. We would 
say to the watchmen upon the walls of Zion, 



CHRISTIANITY NOT A FAILURE. 101 

w Down with the breaks, and stop the running in 
this literal direction ; abolish all sectarian laws, 
and have no law upon the matter of religion but 
the law of God, which is written in tne hearts and 
consciences of the race." Give us a divine sec- 
ularly that will unfold the holy Catholic Church 
as it existed in the divine mind before the founda- 
tions of this world were laid. 

It matters not so much who our parents were, 
where we came from, or how long we have been 
coming, as it does what we are, and what we are 
to be. It matters not so much whether the divine 
principle comes into us, as a spiritual gift, all at 
once, so as to constitute an event in our life, to be 
recorded as a birth, or whether it comes into us in 
discrete degrees, as orders of creation, so long as 
it is there — the unfolding word — to regenerate, 
transform, and demonstrate its love, will, and 
wisdom in the hearts and consciences of the race. 

No earnest student of nature can freely study any 
of the arts and sciences, without, sooner or later, 
opening up within himself the way of life, the 
law of harmony, intercommunion, and tel- 
egraphic communications, to and from all other 
earnest students interested in the same pursuits ; 



102 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

much less can we freely study religion, the 
science of godliness, which includes all the arts 
and sciences, without unfolding within ourselves 
the infinite master of all the schools — the soul of 
all science — whose love is life, whose will is law, 
and whose wisdom is past finding out. Such an 
unfolding is the coming of the Christ, the second 
advent, through the will and the understanding. 

The free religionist has but one master. As 
is the quality of the service rendered, so is the 
measure of freedom enjoyed. Such an opening 
up of the master is the fruitage of a good old age 
■ — a well-spent life. I care not if he be young 
in years, as we live in experience, observation, 
and practice, rather than in days and weeks ; he 
is old and honorable in the sight of God and man. 

While we have been beating and bruising our- 
selves against the external bearers of dogmatic 
theology, the foundations of the broad church 
have been unfolded within. While we have been 
blindly searching for Light and Life in the 
depths of religious animalism, our spiritual ca- 
pacities to perceive and appreciate, as well as to 
know and to be, have been unfolding. We have 
learned, by a more or less painful experience, that 



CHPaSTIAXITY NOT A FAILURE. 10 



g 



the hells, as well as the heavens, are eternal ; that 
they are states and conditions — spiral stairways 
through which we may pass in divine order to the 
mansions beyond — compensated reproductions of 
the tree of life implanted in the soul, some before 
and some after, every one in his own order, each 
receiving his penny. The compensating principle 
of law will bring us all home at last. 

Most of us have very insignificant ideas of 
home. " We have been in the habit of thinking 
of home as a place built by carpenters and masons, 
of brick and mortar, boards and shingles, laths 
and plaster," and decorative ornamentation ; in 
reality, our home beyond the tide is an expec- 
tancy ; it is a state and condition that fits and fills 
the ever-progressive longings and capacities of 
the human soul. Such is our home in the " undis- 
covered cause " which we are to discover, furnish, 
and occupy ; it is the presence-chamber of God, 
the finality of the race, the embodied soul of 
science in the mansions of the blest. 



Yes, there is a glorious prospect, 
Tis the light of life we see, 

It awakes within us mortals, 
Hopes of what we are to be. 



104 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 



AETIOLE XII. 



OUR BELIEF DEFINED — TRUTH ITS EFFECT NATURE 

GOD' S MODE OF OPERATION THE HARMONY OF 

THE SPHERES THE JOURNEY OF LIFE ILLUSTRATED 

— REPUTATION AND CHARACTER — DARWINISM FREE- 
DOM AND ITS EFFECTS. 



We believe in the eternality of the soul, its 
Divine origin, spiritual relations, and ineffable 
destiny; in the fatherhood of God, the mother- 
hood of nature, and the brotherhood of man. 

Belief is a judicious exercise of the mind. It 
supposes some knowledge of the subject upon 
which it is to decide. A well-balanced mind 
weighs the evidence pro and con, and turns like a 
pair of scales the way the evidence preponderates. 

Justice is said to be blind ; but belief, to be 
effectual, must be clear-sighted and sound in the 
judicial function it performs. Such a belief is 
purely an intellectual matter; but belief, in its 
best sense, is a matter of the heart as well as of 



OUR BELIEF DEFINED. 105 

the head, — it involves a cheerful cooperation in 
the truth perceived, an honest endeavor to obtain 
its good and use. 

Truth, in this sense, is the incarnating movement 
that connects the soul with God. It unfolds the 
subjective world, and gives the believer an oppor- 
tunity to stand outside of external existence, or 
rather so distinctly inside, as to produce a stand- 
ing-place as well as a fulcrum through which to 
move the world. Mountains of ignorance are 
thus displaced. 

Nature — God's mode of operation — is the 
great lifting and moving machine of the universe. 
It is a system of wills within a will, that engage, 
connect, and control all things. There are cir- 
cumferential as well as central truths, corollaries 
of thought, purpose, and action, distinct differen- 
tialities, that make up and constitute the trinity 
of life, through which the fatherhood of God, 
the motherhood of nature, and the brotherhood 
of man, act and react upon and through each 
other, thus unfolding the love of God in the 
hearts of men. 

There is a principle in music by which, if cer- 
tain notes are struck in their proper combinations, 



106 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

others will respond and unfold the law of vibra- 
tion — the harmony of the sphere. 

It is upon this principle that the Warden of the 
Eternal Garden plays upon the harp of life. As 
in music, so in morals and religion; if properly 
conditioned in an attuned at-one-ment, the soul of 
science will strike the chord which thrills and 
echoes through the inmost fibres of the soul. It 
is divine truth — the incarnating movement which 
unfolds and lifts the soul to God. 

In the providences of divine harmony there are 
discrete degrees of goods and truths, as well as dif- 
ferent conditions and qualities of servants and ser- 
vice rendered, ranging from the most abject 
conditions of fear and force, in the Mosaic dis- 
pensation, up through the transitional conditions 
of life into the freedom of perfect love, in which 
the Christ of God transforms, regenerates, and 
transmutes the baser metals of our nature into 
pure gold. 

Such is the journey of life. The allegorical 
father lights the way. The son carries the fuel, 
but is not slain. The animal for the sacrifice is 
entangled in the branches, and awaits the consum- 
mation of its kingdom. "Arise, let us go hence." 



OUR BELIEF DEFINED. 107 

111 the kingdom of heaven, where the pure in 
heart see God, and the meek inherit the earth, 
there is no discord, contention, or strife. The 
Jacob that cheated the Esau out of his birthright 
is transformed — the leopard has changed its 
spots, the Ethiopian skin is as white as snow — 
it is the workings of the law of regeneration, the 
school-master, that unfolds the Christ. The good 
that Jacob robbed from Esau, when a boy, he 
dispensed, when old, to the world — -to all his 
children's children that may come after him. In 
brief, it is the glory of God in the salvation of the 
race. 

"There is no evil in the city, and the Lord hath 
not done it." There is an all-pervading essence, 
or principle, which we believe in and call God, 
which exists in and permeates all matter ; in a 
sense, to be considered its cause — its life — its 
unfolding word, the diadem, or crowning work, 
of which we, the individual gems of eternal life, 
can never be more than unfolding and reflecting 
parts. 

There is in reality no new thing, or absolute 
spiritual progress, under the sun. God our Father 
is a finality, pervading and unfolding all condi- 



108 AETICLES OF FAITH. 

tions of matter. He is the one only Eternal now 
in which we live, move, and have the privilege 
of unfolding and perfecting ourselves in accord- 
ance with His law. Time, common sense, the 
quickening of the spirit, and the inspiration 
of the Almighty, will reveal it unto you. It is 
written in your heart — your affectional nature — 
the garden of the Lord — the " vineyard " of the 
Christ, in which every man that works shall re- 
ceive his "penny." 

Eeputation — what is said of us — is of little 
account ; but character — what we are and expect 
to be — is the pearl of great price ; it is the only 
solid thing in existence ; if is the result of obedi- 
ence to principles — "character pure, truthful, 
brave, unselfish, and self-sacrificing, is godlike 
and divine " ; " it is the only object of moral rev- 
erence and spiritual ambition " ; " it is the sub- 
stance of things hoped for, the evidence of things 
not seen." 

Character, crude, wrought, and in process, is the 
work of God in man ; the world is the workshop, 
and time the material used in its construction. 
Character, the finished work, is the pure carbon 



OUR BELIEF DEFINED. 109 

of divine love, crystallized into forms of celestial 
beauty and use. 

Eternity is the parent stock, the concrete whole, 
from which we, individual particles of character — 
the philosopher's stone — were hewn, and by the 
power of which we are held and bound as " living 
stones, fitted and joined together " in the temple 
of the living God. % 

As for Darwinism, — suppose we are nothing 
more nor less than regenerated monkeys, baboons 
and apes, if the regeneration is perfect and com- 
plete, it is no reproach ; but if, on the other hand, 
it is hardly begun within us, and we continue 
(especially if we are in the pulpit) to act the 
* dyspeptic owl," or pious monkey, and treat our 
friends as though they were nothing more than 
religious baboons and apes, we do all that it is 
possible for one to do, by both precept and exam- 
ple, to dishonor God and disgrace the race. 

We do not expect, at least for the present, that 
human souls will be born "big at birth," like 
bumble-bees, but we do expect, through the un- 
foldment of the law of love, and the proper devel- 
opment of our children's children, to escape the 
unpleasant flavor and disagreeable effect of sour 



110 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

grapes in a sense that the infant, the idiot, and the 
insane shall have some show for regeneration in 
this mundane sphere. 

The authority of the Old and New Testaments 
depends upon the truthfulness of the statements 
made, the doctrines inculcated, the standpoint we 
occupy. 

The literal church seems dead and decaying. Al- 
legorically speaking, it has been buried three days, 
and, like Lazarus, is sleeping in the grave. We 
are approaching land : the great fish is about to dis- 
gorge, the allegorical gourd, the unproductive fig- 
tree, must soon wither away. We would not 
speak disrespectfully of the Church — it is the 
mother that bore us ; we would give her a re- 
spectful burial in the family tomb, where "all 
that is of the earth — earthy," must some time go. 

In behalf of suffering humanity, the Lord's poor, 
the ^ f an hungered," "the thirsty," "the stranger," 
"the naked," "the sick," and "the imprisoned," we 
would invite you to the judgment-seat of Christ, 
the court of heaven. The court is to be holden 
in your own hearts and consciences ; the time 
and place is to be the state and condition when 
you are sufficiently enlightened to see your- 



OUR BELIEF DEFINED. Ill 

self as you are seen, and "know" as you are 
"known." You may plead ignorance; we an- 
swer, You have all persons, places, and things to 
teach you. You may plead a lack of time; we 
answer, You have all eternity to be taught in : 
take all the time you need, but come up you must, 
into the broad church, through the unfolding law 
of love implanted within you. 

The church will not be full until every human 
soul has joined it; it will not be perfect until 
each individual member has perfected himself, — 
the divine plant, — and unfolded the fruitage of 
heaven. 

We could extend these articles adfinitum, but 
it is useless to do so ; each one must extend for 
himself. For working plans, detail drawings, 
and specifications, we would refer you to Genesis, 
John, and Revelation, the allegorical Father, Son, 
and Holy Ghost — the literal Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob of the New Dispensation. 

" In a work on the Principles of Zoology, by 
Prof. Agassiz, there is a remarkable and interest- 
ing frontispiece, intended, as the author says, to 
present at one view the distribution of the princi- 
pal types of animals and the order of their sue- 



112 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

cessive appearance in creation, as well also as the 
rank or grade which each maintains to the other 
and to all. The ingenious diagram instructs us 
that there have been four successive periods in the 
career of creation ; that in the first there was the 
reign of fishes, in the second the reign of reptiles, 
in the third the reign of mammals, in the fourth 
the reign of man. And these various orders of 
animals, with their different genera and species, 
are ranked in the picture according to their na- 
tures, one above the other ; and at the top or head 
of the line is placed the word Max. He is the 
last creature to appear, but by no means the least. 
For through all the preceding stages of creation 
there seems to have been a preparing for him. 
The Creator, as we might say, was holding him- 
self in reserve to do his best thing last, when all 
had been got ready for it. God, as the designer 
of this diagram would seem to intimate, ap- 
proached His masterpiece gradually ; and when 
air and earth and sea were in a favorable condi- 
tion, and all the fauna and flora of the planet 
were excellently well arranged ; when beings' 
high gradations were piled to the point where 
completion lacked but another touch — then the 



OUR BELIEF DEFINED. 113 

Author of all drew again and greatly on His in- 
finite powers, and launched from the bosom of 
His own being His fairest, grandest, noblest work, 
and capped the climax of creation with Man, 
" made in the ima^e of his maker." Prof. Agassiz 
fittingly indicates the culmination of the Creator's 
work by placing at the apex of his diagram the 
symbol of royalty — a crown ; which shows that 
man is the coronation of creation, the head and 
front of all the lower orders of animals." 

As in zoology, so in theology, ethics, and reli- 
gion, there are four allegorical heads, or rivers, 
that water the garden, so that each of the cardinal 
points may be well supplied. There are four sides 
of the city of life, or broad church, with gates upon 
each side, so that all may enter and learn by ex- 
perience that the Lord is in it, the light thereof. 
There are four seasons of the year, with months 
in the seasons, which serves each soul as seed-time 
and harvest ; figuratively speaking, the tree of 
life must bud and blossom, grow and ripen, in 
each individual soul before it can be garnered 
home. Three successive dispensations of thought, 
work, and worship have passed ; the fourth is a 
repetition of all that have preceded it; it is a 



114 ARTICLES OF FAITH. 

summing up of divine enactments — the climax 
— the crowning work of God, the embodiment 
of Himself, the millennium, in the hearts and 
consciences of men. In short, the Christ, the broad 
church, its free religion, as defined, is to the reli- 
gions and churches of the world what man is to the 
animal kingdom — the incarnating statement of 
all the truths in the systems of the past — the dia- 
dem that reflects the glory of God, His love, will, 
and wisdom, in the image He has made. 

In closing this the December number of our arti- 
cles, the Reuben of the twelve tribes, the Judas 
of the disciples, we would encourage freedom — 
we would betray the Christ with a kiss, not the 
freedom of the tyrant to intimidate, extort, and 
crucify, but the freedom of the servant, to un- 
fold, harmonize, and bless, which lifts him into 
the position of a friend, with capacities to per- 
ceive, appreciate, and enjoy, to occupy and in- 
herit the kingdom of heaven with the sons of God. 



Touch the sweetest ^chords of music, 
Sing the purest songs of praise, 

For in God we are eternal, 
We shall live through endless days. 



IN THE LAND WHERE WE ARE GOING. 115 



"ZAT THE LAND WHERE WE ARE GOING. 

" In the land where we are going, 

When our earthly life is o'er, 
Where these tired hands cease their striving, 

And these tired heart aches no more, 
In that land of light and beauty, 

Where no shadow ever came 
To o'ercloucl the perfect glory, 

What shall be our angel name? 

When the spirits who await us 

Meet us at our entering in — 
With what names of love and music 

Will their welcoming begin? 
Not the ones so dimm'd with earth-stains 

Linked with thoughts of grief and pain ; 
No ; the names that mortals gave us 

Will not be our angel name. 

We have heard them all too often 

Uttered by unloving lips, 
Earthly care and sin and sorrow 

Dim them with their deep eclipse ; 
We shall change them like a garment, 

When we leave this mortal frame, 
And at life's immortal baptism 

We shall have another name. 

For the angels will not call us 

By the names we bear on earth ; 
They will speak a holier language, 

Where we have our holier birth ; 
Syllabled in heavenly music — 

Sweeter far than earth may claim, 
Very gentle, pure and tender — 

Such will be our angel name. 



116 ARTICLES OF FAITH, 



It has thrilled our spirits often 

In the holiest of our dreams, 
But its beauty lingers with us 

Only like the morning beams ; 
Weary of this jarring discord 

Which the lips of mortals frame, 
When shall we, with joy and rapture, 

Answer to our angel name? " 



S02TG OF THE MYSTIC. 

I walk down the Valley of Silence, 
Down the dim, voiceless valley — ■ alone ! 

And I hear not the fall of a footstep 
Around me — save God's and my own! 

And the hush of my heart is as holy 
As hovers where Angels have flown. 



And still did I pine for the Perfect, 
And still found the False with the True ; 

I sought 'mid the Human of Heaven, 
But caught a mere glimpse of its blue ; 

And I wept when the clouds of the Mortal 
Veiled even that glimpse from my view. 

Do you ask how I live in the Valley? 

I weep, and I dream, and I pray ; 
But my tears are as sweet as the dew-drops 

That fall on the roses in May ; 
And my prayer, like a perfume from censer, 

Ascendeth to God, night and day. 



Do you ask me the place of the Valley, 
Ye hearts that are harrowed by care? 

It lieth afar between mountains, 
And God and his Angels are there ; 

And one is the dark mount of Sorrow, 
And one the bright mountain of Prayer. 

— Father Byan. 



